Time Lapse
by Apalapucian
Summary: "The first time they meet, he's twenty-four, and she literally falls from the sky. He thinks it's love at first sight. It's not—it rarely ever is—but close." AU.
1. prologue

**prologue**

* * *

— _summer_ —

It's half-time break when they tell him. It doesn't come from his team—Coach Jones would never risk upsetting him like this—but the Magpies got wind of the news too, and what better way to cripple Puddlemere United's winning streak than to effectively upset their top Chaser halfway into the game?

"The shack blew up," they tell him, almost sorry, but he knows better. James wonders if she screamed. If she had time to. "Spell gone wrong. They weren't able to save her."

He should cry, but he doesn't. He doesn't feel anything, really, which is alarming, but he can't even summon _that_ emotion properly. With a wordless nod he shoulders his broom and walks away, the hallway suddenly such a long, long trip for him. He can hear the roar of the crowd from the pitch, the united chorus of "POTTER, POTTER, _POTTER…!_ "

His teammates know. In the changing rooms, James, hunched over on a bench and glaring at the floor, drains the contents of his water bottle, avoiding everyone's eyes. Still, in his periphery, he sees some of them look on with conspicuous concern. Do they know that he knows now? Can they tell? Sirius and the others are on the top box. Has anyone told them?

An official pokes his head into the room and says something. Everyone gets to their feet.

"Ready?" James asks everyone before takeoff. He's still captain, after all.

In response, they all look at each other. He almost laughs. What—they're not even going to try?

"Let's go," he mutters, not bothering to wait for an answer.

He's forgotten what it feels like to fly without drowning in the hundred thousand voices chanting his name. He's probably never going to remember anymore.

The whistle blows, and it's the last game he plays.


	2. the first time(?)

**the first time(?)**

* * *

The first time they meet, he's twenty-four, and she literally falls from the sky. He thinks it's love at first sight. It's not, it rarely ever is, but close.

Sirius drags him, Remus, and Peter along to his "special friend" Mary's birthday. It's in some apple orchard clearing near Mango Moon St., hidden from muggles by low rolling hills. There's no one but them and Mary, and Mary's mum, and Mary's best friend who has yet to arrive. This scarcity of guests pleases James. There was once a time when he ruled crowded gatherings. Now he's developed a profound loathing for the ubiquitous meddlers in his infamous, short-lived Quidditch career.

Mary's mum promptly leaves them to their devices after helping them get the place ready. They've set up a marquee. The food is fantastic. The air smells like apples and grass, and James feels strange. Auspicious. Like something magnificent is waiting to happen.

Mary is slicing the cake when it comes: a squeal resounds from above, followed by a panicked, "Look out!"

"Oh, dear Merlin," Mary mutters, not as fazed as expected. She drops her knife and rushes out, unceremoniously casting a cushioning spell on the ground, like this sort of thing happens every day.

The girl from the sky—the best friend, James is guessing—hits the corner of the marquee despite her best efforts. She touches down with a thud, groaning and clutching her side, her bright red hair a criminal contrast against the grass.

Before anyone can speak, a broomstick falls right behind her. She turns around, just flails ungracefully in a scurry of legs on the grass, and grabs it. James looks up in case anything else is falling, but the sky is clear.

Redhead best friend is already on her feet. Grinning. Sheepish, but nonetheless delighted. "Happy birthday, Macdonald!" she says, running towards Mary to give her a hug.

Mary laughs as she gets smothered. "Lily Evans, everyone," she announces to the lot. "She likes to make an entrance."

* * *

Lily Evans, the redhead best friend, hands James an old Cleansweep. He freezes.

"What's wrong?" she asks, and somewhere in that hazy cloud of shock, James vaguely appreciates the lack of humor in the question.

"I, er…" He's legitimately worried that he might throw up all that cake. That's what's up.

"He doesn't really play," Sirius supplies for him. He carefully pries the broom from James's hands. Remus and Peter pretend not to notice, but James catches them exchange a glance. Mary is away, oblivious, dividing the children into teams.

Pathetic. James feels downright pathetic. It's all appearing way more tense that it should be, he knows that, but he can't find his voice to assure everyone it's fine. Is it fine? He doesn't think he's held a broom in… two years now? Not since that last match…

"You—oh." Lily Evans pauses. "That's okay," she says, taking the broom from Sirius. She's smiling at them, but it's a funny kind of smile; a curious, disappointed, something-else smile that James will stay up thinking about later that night. "I'll just give this to Miles then…"

Miles is some ten-year old kid in Mary's neighborhood, one of the few muggle-born ones who arrived later in the afternoon with battered, outdated broomsticks. He might be her cousin? James wasn't paying attention much.

You know what, whatever. This whole Quidditch thing's just making him edgy. He's not even sure how they ended up about to play a "friendly match" with children who, by the way, probably can't even tell a bludger from a quaffle. Do they even have a functioning bludger? Even _Remus_ is playing. The whole auspicious thing's completely gone by now. What a joke.

James kicks a stone on his way to the side of their makeshift pitch. He shoves his hands in his pockets as the teams kick off, leans on a tree and squints against the sun to watch them play. His fingers twitch at the brief memory of the broomstick in his hand. Just some ancient Cleansweep Four. He doubts it can even handle the Gryffindor game plays he remembers.

But still. Flying.

What is Lily Evans thinking? Does she think he's some kind of nutcase now?

Why does he care? They've only known each other, like, three seconds. Honestly.

He doesn't realize that he's not the only one who passed on the game until Mary's right beside him, bouncing on her toes and asking, "So it's not just big matches then?"

James makes sure his face isn't as pissed as he feels. "Sorry?"

"Quidditch. You really don't play it anymore? Even just…" She gestures vaguely at the ongoing match. Miles just made a goal—through the wrong hoop. Peter is swearing. Lily Evans is laughing, her head thrown back and her hair like flying fire.

"Not anymore, no," says James. "What about you?"

"I'm afraid of heights."

"Ah."

"Do you miss it?"

"No."

"Okay."

He can tell she doesn't believe him. No one usually does. He wonders why they keep asking.

"You were fantastic though, did you know?" Mary says. "You were really good."

James manages a smile. "Thanks. You support Puddlemere United then?"

"Ah, no. I mean, you were fantastic there, too. Youngest World League captain and all... But there are too many teams for me to keep track of. I meant Hogwarts. As Chaser for Gryffindor?"

"Oh, right."

"You haven't forgotten me, have you?"

James chuckles. "Of course not." He points with his chin at Lily. "I seem to have forgotten her, though." He thinks only an idiot would forget someone like that, but then again idiocy is already something he long wouldn't put past him. "Was she ever in Hogwarts?"

Mary follows his gaze. "No."

"Beauxbatons?"

"No. She... didn't attend any of ours."

"Oh."

Silence.

James can't help it: "But she's—"

"Yes, she's a witch."

James doesn't say anything, but it must have shown on his face because Mary smiles rather guiltily at him and says, "Sorry. It's not really my story to tell."

"Nah, that's okay, I wasn't…" But he _is_ interested. Very. "That's fine."


	3. the next three

**the next three**

* * *

It's funny because after that she's everywhere. Lily. And not even just because she's Sirius's girlfriend's best friend ("Special friend, Prongs, Mary's just a special friend," Sirius would say, but who cares about that besides him, really).

Lily Evans is just everywhere.

The first time, James runs into her at Chuckskate's. She's at a corner table reading a book, occasionally pausing to write on a journal. He wonders if she's as hard to miss to everyone else as she is to him. James came without any plans of lingering; he was on his way to Hogsmeade to check on the joke shop's ongoing construction. But he sees her and he sees the light hitting her hair just so, and how serene she looks in concentration, and just—he thinks, it's not that urgent, is it? The other three can cover for him. He takes his drink and sits by the tall glass windows, pretending to wait for someone. Checks his watch and looks out every two minutes or so and everything. He's being ridiculous, he knows.

Lily doesn't look up. Not once. After sometime, James starts feeling like a stalker—he _is_ being one—chides himself for being a fucking ponce, and then leaves.

* * *

The second time is in Flourish and Blott's. He stares stupidly when he sees her— _again_ —not quite believing his luck. She's standing on her tiptoes trying (and so far failing) to reach a book up on the Transfiguration shelf. When he gets his wits back (not too long after, thank Merlin), he rushes over and takes the book for her. She seems just as bewildered as he when he hands it over.

She says 'thank you', and James knows then. He just… well, he doesn't know _what_ , but something is hitting him, a _knowledge_ of some sort, and she's… something else. For sure. Just by the way he reels at her smile. She's something else.

Lily Evans. Hmm.

Then again it's been a while.

She's really pretty.

(What the fuck is wrong with him?)

He forgets _you're welcome_ and sighs out a breathless _hi_ instead. She says _hello_ back, amused.

They're next to each other in line for payment, and James fidgets, debates the entire time whether or not he'd ask her out for ice cream. Right now if she's free, or, like, some other time, maybe, if she wants. But she seems in a hurry, so he lets the thought go.

She wishes him a good day before they part, and he wants to tell her that she just made it.

* * *

The third time, it's in St. Mungo's, and he literally bumps into her. He's walking backwards (which probably isn't the best idea when you're holding four styrocups of steaming hot takeaway coffee), promising the irate receptionist that this is _really_ the last time he's sneaking muggle coffee in from outside the hospital. Lily's right behind, apparently not paying attention either. They crash, as was bound to happen, and when he hurriedly turns around to apologize, she's… not disappointed, but not quite as happy to see him as the last time either.

"James Potter," she says with a frown, a question more than a greeting.

"That's me," says James. "Hi. You okay?"

She nods. "Are you—What are you doing here?"

The right answer: _Wolfsbane experiments on my werewolf friend. Not a cure exactly, but finally something we might be able to work with_. His answer: "Visiting. Nothing serious, though. You?"

"That, too."

"I'm sorry. Family?"

"No. A friend."

"It's not Mary, is it? Does Sirius know? He's here with me, should I—?"

"Oh, no, no. Not Mary. Mary's alright… Haven't they broken up?"

"What?"

Lily raises an eyebrow. "I don't think Sirius and Mary are still together."

"Seriously?"

She lets out a little laugh. "I don't think it's a big deal for any of them, but you go talk to him. I, er—I gotta go, sorry…"

"Yes, okay, I'll… Here, take this." He hands her one of the four cups, making sure he offers the one with his name scribbled on it. She takes it by knee-jerk instinct. "Sorry for the whole, er... You do drink coffee, right?" She had one at Chuckskate's.

"Yes, but—"

"It's okay! I've got plenty, see? And it's not poisoned or anything... Nice running into you, Evans."

Her eyebrows furrow a little. He's not sure if it's the coffee or his use of her last name. "Thanks," she says. She's smiling now. "You, too."

He's well away into the opposite corridor when she calls him back (also by his last name).

"Yes?"

"I'll buy you next time," she says, raising his—hers now—cup at him.

He grins. "Looking forward to it."


	4. it's been a while

**it's been a while**

* * *

The next time he sees her, she's looking through the windows of a secondhand broom shop, and it's no longer a happenstance.

He takes his time walking up to her, noting the intense concentration with which she's gazing at the old broomsticks on display.

"Are you into Quidditch then?" he asks first thing, skipping on the greetings and whatnot to surprise her, just to be cute.

"Loads," she says at once, not startled in the slightest. She bites her lower lip, still gazing at the display, and then she takes a deep breath, like the broomsticks put her in a trance that she needs to properly rouse herself out of. When she straightens up and her eyes finally land on him, she's all light and smiles again, and he's struck at how he blanks out at everything her-related. This is all happening _too fucking fast,_ he reminds himself, but it also feels like time has simply stopped going since she fell from the sky at Mango Moon St. "Hello again, Potter."

"Evans," he returns, with a little bow that came from God knows where and which he did for God knows why. "I must say, getting a message to me through my mates was a big risk."

"Through your mates and mine," she corrects him. They start walking down the street. James tries not to fiddle with his hands. "Thankfully Mary and Sirius's breakup was… amicable."

"So they say," says James. "Is Mary alright? I'm sorry if Sirius was a git. I didn't even know."

"Nah, Mary's okay… I kind of expected it. I think she did, too. I don't think they ever took it that seriously. He doesn't seem like the type to stick to just one, your friend."

"He did stick to just Mary the entire time they're together," James says defensively.

"Oh? Sorry… Well, it's not like Mary's too hung up on him anyway. She said it was bound to happen. He was too gorgeous, she was too sensible, yada yada."

"Yada yada," echoes James, which makes Lily chuckle. "Mary's really nice," he tells her.

"She is," says Lily fondly. "Honestly, if she and Sirius had stopped talking, I wouldn't have known how to contact you. It still feels weird sending stuff to people with birds. I thought I'd have to wait until you bump into me again to have this date."

James smiles at his trainers.

"What?" she asks him, not one to miss.

"We're on a date."

"And?" she asks, but he can see that she's struggling to keep her own smile at bay.

"And, well, I sort of really like you a bit, so it's sort of really exciting... a bit."

She laughs. "Best sentence I've ever heard."

He laughs too, nervously. "Eh. My past time, you know. Breaking records."

"Not picky about the records much?"

"I can't be. It's the curse of the record breaker." _Okay. Get a grip. What. The fuck. Are you saying?_ His cause of death is going to be this massive internal cringe, bloody hell.

But by some miracle, albeit with a shake of her head, Lily laughs yet again. "Are you taking me to Puddifoot's then?"

"Please, no."

"But isn't it the most date-y place to date?"

"I don't know where you got that, but I'm afraid you've been misinformed. Besides, we're in Diagon Alley…" He remembers the last time, in the book shop. "What about ice cream?"

"Sounds great."

* * *

Some things he learns on that first day: she lives with her sister in Cokeworth, her parents are both long gone, and she works in a wizarding public library slash book shop on Mondays to Thursdays. She says she wants to learn magic as much as she can by herself, hence the library. "And earn magic money," she adds excitedly as she drizzles her mulberry ice cream with caramel syrup. "Buy magic stuff with it."

He wants to ask why she didn't attend Hogwarts, when and how she knew about magic, how she met Mary. "Have you bought any then?" he asks instead, finding that he does want to know the answer to that just as much. "Magic stuff?"

"A few books, a few trinkets," she answers. "I want to buy a wand soon. Maybe an owl. Does it have to be an owl? Or just any bird?"

"I don't think there's a specific rule," says James. "Sirius sent me a letter with a hornbill once."

That makes her laugh. "That's ridiculous."

"Even by magical standards, it is, yeah..."

They get by through the entire thing with more conversations like that. Also through the dates that follow, because obviously he's not a _moron,_ and he really likes her, and he's not about to let the first one be last. He doesn't mind. The conversations. Not one bit. Lily Evans is fun. They do actually go to Puddifoot's one time, mind, and it's not at all bad; infinitely better than when he was there last. (He was with Jeanne Marchbanks. He was a fifth year and she was in seventh, they were still in Hogwarts, and the memory still makes him cringe.)

Lily lets him pick her up from the library when she's dismissed early in the afternoon and he doesn't have errands to do for the joke shop. They have ice cream or coffee, depending on the day. Sometimes both. Eventually even dinner. They go about any topic under the sun; that is, save the questions he wants answered most. She doesn't ask him about Quidditch either, although he's found out that she's quite a fan of the sport, as she knows her teams and she likes to play it with the kids when she can. She starts coming to the flat at some point, hangs out without problem with his mates as well. She talks about the ongoing league to Sirius and the others, interestingly enthusiastically, when she thinks James isn't around to hear.

What gets to James is how eager she is to know stuff about him, like even the most insignificant facts about himself genuinely fascinates her somehow. She asks him what his favourite ice cream flavour is in the same manner she'd ask him what his opinion on the current Minister for Magic is. She asks him what Hogwarts is like, how it felt when he was Sorted, the first time he bought a wand. She asks him what House does he think she'd have been in had she attended Hogwarts—and he says _Gryffindor_ so fast and so vehemently that she laughs at him. He gets to know her back through the small-talk answers she indulges him, if not yet for the bigger stories he wanted to hear. He learns her different kinds of smile, her levels of laughter, what makes her blush.

And being with her… It doesn't take much for him to forget the other questions, really.


	5. just a day in fall

**just a day in fall**

* * *

"I might not be around next week," Lily says, one Thursday evening while he's walking her home. "It's going to be busy in the library. Season closing. Inventory and all that."

"That's okay," says James. "The shop's opening on Wednesday, though. What time do you get off? You can catch up to the after-party."

"Oh, your joke shop's opening!"

"Yeah. If, you know, only if you want to come."

"Oh my god, congratulations! That's amazing! Of _course_ I'd love to come. Can I bring Mary?"

"Yeah! Sirius might have invited her already, actually."

"Yeah, he probably has…"

They stop by where the high street branches off. She doesn't let him walk her all the way to her house because, in her own words, she doesn't think either of them is ready for him to meet her sister yet. "Thanks for today," she says. "I had fun."

She always tells him that, before she leaves. Not always in the same words, but—that, essentially. That she had fun. Her grin never falters, too; it's the same wide smile on the first date, same thing every single time after. James tilts his head to one side. "Pressure."

Her grin dents itself. "What?"

"You always tell me you had fun."

"I _did_ have fun."

"What if someday you don't?"

She looks genuinely confused. "Then I'll let you know."

"Huh. Okay, well, I suppose I'll just strive to never bore you."

"I don't think it's possible for anyone to get bored around you, actually."

He chews on his cheek, trying not to look too—

"Don't look too smug," she says, and James laughs. "Your head's going to explode, isn't it?"

"Possibly," he says.

She shakes her head. "I'm going before you die of me then." She starts backing away. "I'll see you Wednesday, Mr. Potter. Try not to miss me too much."

"I might cry, Miss Evans," he calls out to her. "I miss you already!"

She rolls her eyes before turning away. He watches her go, but not for long. If he did, he would have seen her slow to a halt, and then turn abruptly around to run back to him.

He hears her brisk footfalls and exhausted pants before he sees her.

For a short moment there's just her, getting too close too fast out of nowhere. An advancing mass of orange against the deep blue of the dusk. Just her flushed, lamp-lit face and the scuffle of her feet against the pavement, and then—

She's on her tiptoes, hands heavy and firm on either of his shoulders, her lips on his.

Her. Lips. On. His. James is so surprised he's paralyzed, absolutely just stands still with his hands awkwardly held out on his sides and his eyes wide beneath his knocked-to-the-side spectacles. He doesn't do anything, which is so incredibly, unbelievably _stupid_ , what the actual fuck, doesn't move a bloody inch even until only her breathless sigh is brushing against his lips.

And then it's over.

"I miss you already, too," she whispers. Then she laughs at his dumbfounded face. "See you Wednesday," she says, and then runs away.


	6. some answers

**some answers**

* * *

On Wednesday she arrives late, but just as well because James didn't want her to see him get pestered by journalists who weren't the least bit interested in the shop's ribbon cutting ceremony whatsoever; just hopeful that maybe this time, who knows, the papers would get an exclusive tell-all interview about James Potter's last match two years ago. Answers from the renowned Chaser himself as to why he really dropped the quaffle—did he do it on purpose or did he just truly lost his wits, what was the reason, what happened, why did he quit just right then…?

Peter did most of the talking. Remus filled in for the more technical bit. James and Sirius answered every now and then, but only to the significantly less annoying ones.

When Lily arrives, it's long over, and only Mary, Marlene, Fenwick, the Prewett twins, and the four of them are left in the shop, drinking celebratory Ogden's and some other kind of muggle booze that Peter says he nabbed from his father's stash. The door-chimes ring and James straightens up at once. Lily comes in, pink in the cheeks, her hair wiry from the rain outside.

James gives her a big hug. Her arms are drenched too, but he doesn't care. "Hullo, Evans!"

"Hi, Potter," she says, her chortle muffled against his chest. She hugs back just as tightly. "Sorry I'm late."

"Oi," Mary calls out from behind them. "Am I the best mate or what?"

Sirius scoffs. "Please. We both know you and I've been long demoted."

* * *

Lily doesn't drink. She settles for some blue lemonade that's mercifully around, although she mumbles to James later that it's too sour. She laughs after one sip, grimacing at the taste, nose scrunched up. James laughs too, and he pinches her cheeks because she's adorable and he can't help it.

The Prewett twins have to leave not long after she arrived. Gideon nods at Lily, ever the taciturn, formal one; Fabian gives her a one-armed hug. They are both, as they say, glad to have finally met James's girl.

"James's girl," says Lily, once they've left. "Rambled about me, have you?"

James grins. "Just a bit."

Sirius, Remus, and Peter have by this point long settled into a comfortable, silly, banter-level friendship with Lily, to James's relief (and mild surprise, if he's honest). Sirius's set of obligatory, inappropriate comments inevitably come up, more densely supplied tonight in his slight inebriation. James can hardly do anything about that. He just throws Sirius all the limes within his reach. Lily seems amused by them at any rate.

Marlene and Fenwick—the latter introduced as Benjy to Lily—take to her at once. They are most interested in the fact that, despite being a witch, she didn't attend any formal magic school.

"Can I ask why?" Benjy inquires nonchalantly while he picks on a platter of now-soggy chips. The rain has long since run out outside, but the stoppage only becomes evident in the sudden silence. Mary looks up from her little chat with Remus. She steps forward, but seems unsure what to do.

Lily smiles at her reassuringly. She struggles to smile at Benjy too, but James sees the nervous bob in her throat. _You don't have to answer_ , he wants to say, but she's already started speaking: "I didn't know. I do now, obviously, but back then, I... I didn't get my letter."

"Everyone gets their letter," says Marlene. "Dumbledore makes sure everyone does."

"Yeah, I—they might have sent me one, I just... didn't get it? My aunt… My parents died when I was very young. I don't remember them much. So Petunia and I—that's my sister—we lived with a close family friend who took us in. Aunt Hilda. Single old lady. She wasn't all that bad, she provided us with everything, really, but she… she wasn't very keen on the idea of this magic thing. Firmly opposed it. Said it's a bad thing. Very, very bad thing. And not just because, you know, she's a muggle. It wasn't that she thought it was crackpot. She actually knew it existed—which I can only imagine gave Petunia a heart attack—but she absolutely abhorred it. There was no way I was going to the school."

"But Dumbledore," Remus puts in, concerned. "He talks to parents—to your aunt—he would have explained…"

"He might have," says Lily. "And I might have fought my aunt and sister tooth and nail for it. I mean— _magic_. I wouldn't have willingly let that... Anyway. I wouldn't know. I don't remember."

"You don't remember?" asks Peter, voicing out everyone else's thoughts. "I don't understand."

"They made me forget," says Lily quietly. "So I wouldn't go."

" _What?_ " It must have been all of them who spoke. James puts down his glass on the pool table with a thud that's deafening against the disbelieving quiet.

"Dumbledore wouldn't," says Remus.

"Not Dumbledore," says Lily. "Some other witch… or wizard, actually. I don't know, sorry. My aunt's died, too. I never got to ask—I didn't know there were things to ask. But—yeah. I have no memories of any letters, or Dumbledore coming to explain, or anything magic, really, that might have happened then."

Marlene frowns. "How... How did she make you forget? Is your sister…?"

"No, they're both muggles," says Lily surely. "It was Aunt Hilda. She knew someone—not from here, I don't think. Some wizard who owed her something, a debt made from years ago, and Aunt Hilda asked that my memories of magic be erased or altered or suppressed or whatever, as a collection of favours." She pauses, traces the rim of her glass with her index finger. "Petunia said... well, she said she was sorry, when I finally found out. To be fair, she was very young, and they both honest to god believed that they were doing what's best for me at the time. Magic destroyed lives, that's what they said. They didn't want mine to go the same way."

James's hands clench into fists. Before he can speak, however, Remus says, in that angry-calm voice that's always so much worse than his angry-loud one: "That wasn't theirs to take away." He, after all, would know what _that_ feels like.

James tries not to meet Sirius's eyes at this. In his periphery, he sees him take a long sip of his drink.

"It was your life," says Marlene, horrified. "They shouldn't have stolen that from you."

"I know." Lily's smile is so small, barely there at all. "But it's okay."

It's not. This time James _does_ lock eyes with Sirius from under their hung heads, and they both know that everyone else is thinking _it's not_.

"When did you know?" asks Peter. "And how?"

"Three years ago. My sister... cracked. She told me everything."

James wants to ask why, what took that so bloody long—but Lily already looks worn down. She clearly doesn't enjoy strolling down memory lane for this.

"And Mary?" asks Benjy.

"Oh—that's actually funny—I met Mary before I even found out," says Lily, smiling at the person in question. Mary hasn't spoken the entire time, just watched anxiously from the side. "I tend to wander off and I ended up in their neighbourhood once. Mango Moon. It was charmed from muggle eyes with protective spells and all that. She thought I was a witch, seeing as I could step beyond the boundary and see past the muggle-warding concealments they put up, some ruins—"

"You _are_ a witch," says Mary.

"Well, you thought I was aware of it then," says Lily, laughing softly. "And she just—started talking to me like I was a proper one, Hogwarts graduate and all, and then she had a wand, and just casually levitated a pot off the ground. Scared the hell out of me."

"It took me half an hour to realize that the wide-eye act was actually her freaking out," says Mary. "I thought she was just one of the loony ones."

Lily laughs. "Yeah. I went back home that day, debated mentioning it to my sister. For some reason, it... The next day, I was thoroughly convinced I'd dreamed it. When Petunia told me about what I am, three years ago, through all that… confusion, and anger, there was that hazy dream of Mary. It wasn't real, I knew it couldn't have been, but I thought nothing that vivid could only have been a dream. It started being the only thing that made sense then. So I looked for Mary. I looked for Mango Moon St., I went back to that orchard, and—I didn't find her immediately. It took me about a week? And when I did, I just—"

"She was like my long lost sister. Or _I_ was her long lost sister. Just hugged me. Also sort of screamed. And then she started _sobbing_..."

Lily laughs again, covering her face with her hands. She resurfaces with a fond smile and flushed cheeks. "So that's that. Sorry about the downer."

Marlene strides across the room to hug her. "I'm so sorry," she says. "You didn't deserve that. No one deserves that."

"It's okay," says Lily. She turns to James over Marlene's shoulder, looking a bit overwhelmed, but also happy, and James's heart swells. "I'm okay!" she says again, when Marlene continues to hold her, and no one still would speak. "Really. Better late than never, yeah?"

"To that," says Sirius finally, slurring a little, raising his glass. James picks his glass back up from the pool table. "To Lily Evans," continues Sirius, "and to better late than never."

Lily exhales a shuddering breath and attempts to discreetly blink her tears away. James puts a protective arm around her once Marlene lets her go. He raises his glass with everyone else.

"I'm okay," Lily says, quietly and only to him this time, noticing the look on his face. She leans against him, smiling as she clinks her sour blue lemonade against his firewhisky.


	7. unspilled stars, unspilled secrets

**unspilled stars, unspilled secrets**

* * *

The building they bought for the shop has a cramped rooftop with a low parapet. Beyond the rough uneven stone is a patchwork of Hogsmeade's roofs and chimneys, fading out into fields, into groves, into a horizon of jagged mountains, jet black against the misty night. Most importantly, it provides an awesome view of the skies. Well into the night, Lily and James climb up there, sharing a blanket too small for two, and comfortable silence that makes him want to just live out his entire life in that space with her. Their lighting only subsists on the streetlamps from below, and it's still too cloudy to stargaze, but everything from their small vantage point glistens rather magnificently with the aftermath of the rain. James made sure to dry their bench with a quick spell. They can still hear tired voices from below—Remus, Peter, and Mary, talking about fake wands and Zonko's and something about a supposed secret chamber under Hogwarts. Marlene has gone home, Fenwick is snoring on the pool table, and Sirius has slumped down on the cashier counter.

"All right, Potter?" Lily asks. "Your face is all… crumpled."

He contorts his face exaggeratedly and then says, "It's not."

She reaches up to kiss his cheek. "I'm alright," she assures him. "I'm over it."

He drops all jest. "How can you be?"

She shrugs. "Life is short. They're family. Petunia's all I got now, and I can't be angry at her for long."

"I don't think I can forgive that fast."

She sighs. "I had to. She and Aunt Hilda both. I didn't immediately—I was furious at first, of course. I couldn't believe it. I—I went back to Mary, just blindly sought this one stranger in my desperation. I wasn't even sure if she really existed. She did, and I just—I dumped everything on her that day. I must have freaked her out as much as she did me the first time we met, but I didn't care, I was... I needed someone, and she was the only one I knew who would understand. I'm not even sure I understood entirely. It was confusing and painful and—it was like Marlene said. My life. Gone past me."

James stays silent, thoughtful.

She nudges him. "Potter."

He lazily raises a hand. "Present."

"Stop brooding."

He rolls his eyes, but also sighs and pulls her closer. "I'm trying not to think about it."

"You're wondering why she told me, aren't you? Why she gave in after keeping it for so long?"

"Self-studied Legilimency, have you?"

"Legilimency?"

"Oh. Mind reading."

"You can do that?"

He disentangles his arm from her, shifts to level her gaze. She looks right back with a crease on her forehead. He pretends to concentrate really hard, head inclined and eyes narrowed.

"Are you being serious right now?" asks Lily, leaning away from him.

"Nah, still James," he mutters, not breaking act.

"Terrible," she counters.

"Shush. I'm reading… I'm reading that you find me so irresistibly attractive on this particular night, and it's taking all of your willpower not to jump me."

She exhales a breath of relief and pushes him away by the face. "You are so full of it."

He laughs. "Not everyone can do it. It's something you can learn, though."

"That's… as brilliant as it's terrifying."

"You know another thing as brilliant as it's terrifying?"

"What?"

"Being able to turn to animals."

"Like werewolves?"

"No," says James, with years' worth of precisely calculated nonchalance. "I meant turning by will."

He carefully studies her expression, but it's only ever unconcerned. She nods and says, "Oh, yeah, _that,_ I've read about."

"You have? Nerd."

"Animagi. Brilliant, but—not fun, is it? Who would go to all that trouble to be able to shift?"

James, who was not expecting her reaction to take that direction, carelessly frowns.

"What? Oh, god—do you know some Animagi? I didn't think it was that common! Oh no, sorry—"

"It's fine! It's okay. It _is_ uncommon though, you're right…" He considers telling her then, about his and his friends' secret, but chickens out. It's not really just his to share. "We had a professor once," he says instead. "In Hogwarts. She could turn into a cat."

"Wow." There's a pause, and then she groans, leans fully against him with a wistful sigh. "Hogwarts. God. I _have_ forgiven Tuney, I truly have, it's just—sometimes I can't help but long for it! The houses, the moving staircases, and— _that_. Professors who turn into cats. That's—this whole world is bizarre."

"You have the rest of your life to explore it now. We won't miss anything."

She's the one who goes quiet this time.

"Evans."

She raises her hand. "Present."

He chuckles. And then, "You're right, I was wondering about your sister."

She kisses him. Without warning. Again. But this time he rallies fast, and cups her face to return the fervour just as much.

When they break away, he closes his eyes and catches his breath. "You really need to stop doing that."

"I really don't. You look so cute all blown away."

"You need to stop it."

"Mhmm. Maybe next time."

"Next time you'll stop?"

"No." She's leaning in again, but her dilatory pace is enough warning this time. "Your question. Next time?" She hovers on the corner of his mouth, her fingers gently pitter-pattering their way from his collarbone to his jaw.

James, sufficiently distracted, relents. "Alright." He all but just sighs it.


	8. feels like flying

**feels like flying**

* * *

She doesn't notice him outside the library when she finally steps out.

She walks down the short flight of wide-stone steps to the street, right past the bench where he's been waiting for her in the last thirty minutes or so. He jumps to his feet to catch up. When he taps her shoulder and says 'hey', she starts.

"James." She sighs in relief at the sight of him.

"Hi," says James, his excitement waning by the second. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

"I'm okay," she assures him. She smiles. Something snags at its corners. "What are you doing here? I thought we weren't meeting till Friday."

"Yeah, but I—my plan went smoother than expected, I thought I'd… Is everything alright?"

"Just a bad day at work, sorry." She lets her smile strain itself. At least it's realer now. "I'm happy you're here. I missed you."

But he's worried about how out of it and jumpy she seems. He tilts his head, levels it with hers, tries to search it on her face—

"I might have to quit the library," explains Lily, beating him to it. "I'm not sure yet. But that's just it, really."

"Why do you have to quit?"

"I've only been under this sponsored internship with a few students, but everybody else is going back to Hogwarts this fall. They don't think they'd still be able to provide for allowance after this summer, or need interns," she explains. "It's okay. I can look for another job… Can we talk about something else?"

"Sure? You can get it out of your system."

"No, yeah, I'm sure. Please."

"Yes, okay," he says at once. He takes her hand and walks them down the damp, leaf-strewn street. "I have something for you."

"Oh?"

"Yep. A few somethings."

"Alright," she says, lightening up now. "Let's have it then."

"Right. I knew you would have a bit of a problem with the wand part, but—"

"Whoa, wait—the wand part? What wand part?"

"Well…"

"What—you are _not_ buying me a wand! We've talked about this—"

"No, no, but, see— _okay_. First of all, it's not just me. The others pitched in, too. It's really not much, we promise—"

"Oh god. The others? James, you didn't have to—"

He halts and kisses the tip of her nose. He laughs at her expression, caught somewhere between pleased-surprised and petulant. "Hear me out?" James asks. Lips closed tight, she nods. "The boys, me, Marlene, and Fenwick—" He counts his mates off with his fingers, "—It's not a lot. You can pay us back later, so you'll be the one paying for it ultimately."

"What if I can't?"

"Can't what?"

"Pay you back. I did just tell you I might lose my job soon."

"You can." He squeezes her hand. "We'll help you find another job. No rush. No credit deadline. Zero interest. Perquisites of being my girlfriend, obviously."

She sighs a smile.

"Come on," James insists. "You have to let us give you the wand. Otherwise the rest of the somethings won't come through."

She narrows her eyes at him. "What are you up to?"

"Nothing you wouldn't love. I promised not to bore you, didn't I?"

"I'm _still_ having fun."

He shrugs. "Wouldn't hurt to up my game."

It takes a few more steps to the mouth of the High Street. "Okay," she says, still hesitant, but James can tell she's excited now, too. "Wand granted."

" _Yes_ —!"

"But I _will_ pay you," she says firmly, "as soon as I can."

"Brilliant. Let's go."

"What— _now_? Right now?"

He pauses. "You don't have to be somewhere right now, do you?"

"No, but—I can't be late tomorrow! You got me late on your opening."

He nudges her, smirking. "Worth it though, yeah?"

She laughs. "Maybe."

"Just the wand today then. We'll get you home early. The rest on Friday… Have you ever apparated?"

"Er, no."

"Oh, you'll love it…"

* * *

Nothing much has changed with Ollivander's since the last time James was around. He's had to pay the wandmaker a visit more than once (his current wand is his third), but there's always something about this place, something that makes him feel like he's eleven again every time he's in it. The shelves, packed to bursting with wand boxes, are visible from the outside, but only just so because of the dusty glass panes. The shop seems to have no other customers besides them at the moment, although the street is bustling with shoppers idling by the nearby boutiques. James peers through the window, hands cupped on either side of his face. He doesn't think Mr. Ollivander himself is at his receiving counter at the moment, but the door says 'open', so they're good to go.

Lily seems to be rooted on the pavement by her nerves.

"Alright?" asks James, wiping the grime off the sides of his palms.

"Yes. Do you, er—I'm sorry, will you mind so much if I go in alone?"

"Oh."

"I'm sorry!"

"No, it's okay... are you sure?"

"Yeah. I just—I think I need to do this by myself."

"Of course," says James. "Okay."

"I'm sorry." She rushes forward and hugs him. He backs up slightly, taken by surprise, but he smiles and kisses the top of her head.

"It's really okay." When they break apart, he hands her the bag of galleons for the wand. That pained, embarrassed expression crosses her face again. "Nope, none of that," he reminds her. He takes her hand to wrap her fingers around it. "Go. I'll be here."

She hugs him tightly again, whispering 'thank you' and something else that he doesn't catch, before pushing the shop door open with shaking, clammy hands.

* * *

James asks about it later, when he's walking her home and she finally gives herself a brief break from doing every little, random spell on the top of her head.

"He asked me why I was only getting a wand now," she says, the words coming out in an excited, breathless rush, "which was odd because—isn't yours your second wand already?"

"Third," he corrects. "And that's because Ollivander remembers every single one who buys a wand from him, so he _would_ know if he's seen you before."

"Really?"

"Hmm. Well, he says so, but I don't know."

"Right… Okay, so, he let me try a couple," she continues. "I broke some things by accident, spilled ink over some important-looking papers on the desk—and the fifth one was it! I made this vase of roses bloom. He had a couple on top of the front shelf. I made them bloom, and turned them yellow. They were red. I made them _yellow_. It was this one! This wand. This is _my_ wand..."

Her excitement is so palpable it washes over to him. "How do you feel?"

"Like a witch," she says, barely above a sigh.

She looks up, all full smile and misty eyes and incomparable happiness, and it's the most beautiful James has seen her yet. Which is—unbelievable. Too much to comprehend and feel in just one lifetime, honestly, let alone in just one random, heartbeat-worth moment.

"It feels like flying," she adds, louder this time, but in that same reverent voice and with the same fascinated face.

She kisses him goodbye. Her lips are sloppy and happy and enthusiastic.

For a long time, James watches the spot where she disappeared round the corner, dazed.


	9. you can't be are you?

**"you can't be... are you?"**

* * *

On Friday morning, Sirius struts into the kitchen with his leather jacket slung on one shoulder and his motorcycle keys bouncing on his palm. Upon sighting James on the table—who isn't attentive and quick enough to quit his smiling at his breakfast—he stops walking, the keys immediately at rest in his hand. He watches James with narrowed eyes as he hangs his jacket on the back of the chair he then sits on.

"Prongs," he begins sternly. James stares back in half-arsed defiance, knowing all too well where this is going. "When we said we were okay to help you give Lily a wand, we didn't mean—"

"Oh, for fuck's sake..."

"—that you use the money to buy yourselves a lavish room somewhere, and you give her some—"

"The wand jokes are officially obsolete, Padfoot, they have been for centuries. You missed the memo."

"Well, it's either that or you're in love, and I don't think I can take another Jung era from you just..." Sirius trails off, eyes widening when he catches the look on James's face. "Okay. You can tell me you had sex now. That's fine. That's encouraged. Copulation is a wonderful—"

"I'm sorry, who are you? Please get out of my house. I don't know you. You rang the wrong bell."

"I'm your best friend, James Charlus, and I know you are absolutely, pathetically besotted with Evans, but you only met her last summer. You can't be... are you?"

A beat, and then, "So what if I am?"

"Oh, my god."

"Will you stop overreacting, please."

"Oh, my _god_."

"He's your wife, Prongs," says someone from the open doorway. "He's entitled."

"I am, that's right," says Sirius, giving Peter a stupid sanctimonious nod. "Thank you, Wormtail."

"Anytime."

"Where's Moony?" asks James. "He'd take my side on this."

"The supplier's," answers Peter, taking a seat across Sirius. He starts combing his fingers through his motorcycle-ride-tousled hair. "What's 'your side' anyway? That you're in love with Lily Evans?"

James rolls his eyes.

"God, you just know he is 'cause he can't answer straight," says Sirius.

"Oh, shut up," says James irritably. "This is different, okay? I really don't think it's like the last time."

"Like the whole fiasco with the Jung girl, you mean?" asks Sirius.

"She has a name, you know."

"Irrelevant since she broke your heart."

"I appreciate that, but it's ages since I even last thought about it. Or her."

"No, we know that. She's just Jung girl for eternity," says Peter.

James gets to his feet to put his dirty plates on the sink, no longer bothering to argue. Upon setting them down, he turns abruptly back around to point a finger at his mates. "No one calls her Evans girl, by the way."

"Don't worry. She's Lily until she shatters you," says Sirius.

"She won't _shatter_ me, you're such a drama queen," says James.

The sound of tinkling ceramics and running water makes up for the silence. After a time, James mumbles, "I don't _know_ if I'm in love with her. I did only meet her, so it's... I know it's weird."

"But you're thinking about it," says Sirius. James still hasn't turned around (although his hands have stilled over the sink), so he can't see Sirius's expression.

"I'm trying not to," says James. He turns slowly on the spot, abandoning one still unwashed glass, staring at the washcloth as he dries his hands. "I just feel like we've known each other for a long time. Like we've, I don't know—"

"Prongs, if you're going to make a speech about past lives and reincarnation and all that dragon dung again," interrupts Sirius, "I will shove these keys up unpleasant places."

James glares at him. "I was drunk that one time."

"Three times," interjects Peter. "There was one about soul mates. The red string of fate. I think that's my favourite."

James throws the washcloth at them. Sirius dodges it; it lands straight on Peter's face. "Oi! Gross!"

James ignores him. "What time's Moony getting here? I want to talk to my best mate."

Sirius just snorts.

"Do you really mind her so much?" asks James. "Honestly?"

His friends exchange a glance. "No," says Peter. "She's kind of awesome, I'll give you that."

"And by 'she's kind of awesome, I'll give you that', he means Lily actually wants to be friends with him, surprise, surprise," says Sirius. "Not just because she has to, she being your girlfriend and Pete being your sort of butler and all."

"Prick," says Peter. And then to James, "Lily's fun. We actually like it when she's around, even when you're not. We never have to put up with her."

James bridles. "You've never had to—"

"Jeanne Marchbanks," says Peter simply, while Sirius says, "Please. We all had to put up and more with the Jung girl."

"Fine. A bit ill-worded, but thanks, Wormtail, I appreciate that... Padfoot? D'you mind her? Not that I'm asking for permission—or _approval_. I'm not. I don't need it. I just want to know."

Sirius shrugs. "Eh. She's alright."

James returns to his remaining task on the sink, muttering, "You're hopeless."

But he knows that the absence of a solid no from Sirius Black about anyone he dates is more than enough. He also knows, even without looking to catch him at it, that the git is smirking at him fondly the moment he turns his back.


	10. sexy owls

**sexy owls**

* * *

"Are we apparating again today?" asks Lily as they scoop out the last of their ice cream at Florean's. It is Friday, and the looming weekend is on the passersby's springy gaits and carefree smiles.

James tears his eyes from a family seated nearby. He didn't know he'd been watching. "No," he answers her. "Flooing today. Have you tried that one?"

"The fireplace thing, right? Floo powder? Yeah, Mary had me try once. Not quite a five-star method either. You lot have some really uncomfortable ways of transport."

"You get used to it. And hey— _we_ lot."

"Oh, yeah." She chuckles. "That's right."

"How's the wand?"

Lily takes it out. "I did my hair with it today," she says cheerfully. Her hair is up in a high ponytail, although a few shorter strands have escaped the updo and now frame her face in loose, straggly curls. "Cleaned my room with it. Sorted my wardrobe for the first time in, like, probably ten years. I tried to make dinner last night too, but I ended up making a colossal mess on the kitchen floor. Petunia had quite a fit."

James laughs. "So no trouble so far then."

"None at all. It's been fun..." Her expression sobers, her mirth dwindling down to a quiet smile. "Thank you. All of you. Really."

"These are all rightfully yours," says James, leaning forward over the table. "But-okay-you're-welcome!" he says hurriedly, seeing Lily open her mouth to counter him. "Ready for stage two?"

" _Nervous_ for stage two. What could be better than a wand?"

"You'll see." He gets to his feet. "Come on. I arranged a trip at the Leaky."

Lily rises as well. She's silent all the way to the Leaky Cauldron, chewing on her lower lip and staring pensively at the ground.

"You'll love it, I promise," assures James.

She laces her fingers through his. "I know I will, that's why I'm worried."

"Why are you worried about that?"

"Just—How can I ever repay you?"

"Hey, you don't have to. And I didn't do much, really. The others helped with the wand, and I told you you can pay us later, so it's just getting you now what you should've gotten years ago. And this one—I didn't do much besides... er, persuade... some people. And that didn't take much too, thank Merlin."

"What do you mean?"

"We're almost there, I can't ruin it now." He walks ahead to face her and takes her other hand. "Don't worry about anything, okay? Just think of it as a terribly late delivery. We're just owls. Delivering. But all of these are yours."

"You're just owls," she repeats, her mouth twitching up into a smile.

"Yes. Just owls. Smart, good-looking, sexy owls, that's us."

She laughs. "Alright. Let's go then, you sexy owl."

* * *

James arrives spinning in the grate wrapped in roaring green flames, stumbling slightly on his way out. He manages to keep his balance, having Flooed numerous times in the past. Lily isn't far behind, and James catches her just in time before she falls. He then hastily picks up the papers that have, in the whirl of their arrival, fluttered down to the floor from the table not far ahead.

"Where are we?" She looks around the room—the open window to the left, blue skies framed in its rough rocky panes; the desk with the papers; a book shelf; moving pictures in various frames, closed door.

James's face splits to a grin. "Guess."

"Hmm. This is... an official looking office. Couple floors up, moving pictures, obviously magical... Can I go out?"

"Oh. Er, yeah. Maybe we can..."

But the door opens just then, and a regal woman in emerald robes enters, her hand flying to her chest in surprise at the sight of the two of them standing in her office.

"Oh, you're here!" she says, walking over to her desk. A set of square spectacles frames her stern eyes, and her hair, they see once she's set down her pointed hat on the table, was done up into a tight bun. "I thought—oh, very well. Good afternoon."

"Good afternoon, professor," says James, and if it were only possible he could very well have combusted in sheer excitement. He steers a wide-eyed, gaping Lily forward by the shoulders. "This is Lily Evans. Evans, this is head of Gryffindor house and Hogwarts Transfiguration professor, Deputy Headmistress, Professor Minnie—"

"While I can no longer take points in your name, Mr. Potter, I am still as capable to turn you permanently into a Skrewt."

"Only joking, of course. Evans, this is Professor McGonagall. She's our favourite. The best. Ask anyone."

Professor McGonagall looks at James with the promise and unquestionable capacity of turning him permanently into a Skrewt—but also with the ghost of an affectionate smile. When she turns to Lily, that ghost-smile takes corporeal form, sympathy softening the edges of her stern exterior. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Evans."

"I..." But Lily just continues to gape; at her, and then at James, and then back at the professor again, her mouth forming around the beginning of sentences that she ends up unable to utter. The other two remain patient, although James is utterly beside himself. "It's so, so nice to meet you," says Lily finally, holding out a hand, tearing up.

And there's something there, something in her expression, that snaps a block of something ice cold within James. Not completely melting it down, as is quite necessary, but it breaks all the same, splinters in the middle with bits and pieces falling down into nothing. He won't be able to pinpoint this exact moment later on, but he'll find himself feeling less... detached. From himself. But it's here. Now. This big, big change for him, for the both of them. It's right here in this moment.

"Just—oh my god," Lily is saying, awestruck. "I've read—I'm so sorry. It's just I've... bloody hell, sorry... I'm in _Hogwarts_!"


	11. winter

**winter**

* * *

The tinkle of door-chimes fills the shop, and James, who was doodling a snitch on a scrap of paper (the letters LE scrawled messily inside the shabby circle), drops his quill and sits up. Remus comes in and walks over to James's side of the counter, hanging his coat and proceeding to the lit grate to warm his hands. James has crumpled his doodle and is now drawing his hand back in concentration as he aims for the waste bin beside the light saber shelf.

"Has Peter dropped by yet?" asks Remus, rubbing his hands together, breathing on his palms.

James's makeshift ball drops straight into the bin in an impeccable whooshing arch, and he smirks to himself. "Score! Sorry, what?"

"Has Peter dropped by yet?" Remus repeats. "He was supposed to bring in the new stock of disillusionment watches. The parcels were delivered to him yesterday."

"Oh. No, he hasn't yet."

Remus sighs. He leaves the fireplace and takes the empty stool beside James. "Sorry I'm late. This amulet vendor blocked me at Neptune St,. Just walked with me all the way to the intersection trying to get me to buy his stuff."

James chuckles. "You're late by only ten minutes, Moony. It's fine."

"Yeah well. I know how you're always excited to end your shift... Wait, you're not today." For Remus only notices now that James hasn't left his seat, like he always does the moment his duty's up by the opening of the door.

"Lily has lessons with McGonagall till six," says James. "And then she'd probably be knee-deep in books in the library till eight."

"Without you?"

"McGonagall has banned me from her private lessons that first day—"

"Because you wouldn't shut up, yeah, I know—but you always go to the library together."

James makes a face at him. "Oi, I was excited, alright? And, er, I'm sort of not allowed in the library now, too, not when she's there too anyway..."

Remus raises a brow at him.

"We got a bit... distracted. Er, last week."

"Slags," comments Remus, rolling his eyes. "How're her lessons going then?"

"She's brilliant," says James, grinning proudly. "Bit stuck on her Patronus, she's really frustrated about it, but she's done most of the stuff in the syllabus we made for her after her assessment test. She's... she's a good flier, too. I mean, not just for a first year flying student. She's really... I suppose it's because she's flown before..."

"Hasn't she got exams next week? I think she mentioned it the other day."

"Not next week, no. It's the week after that. Unless you count me testing her every Sunday with your old pamphlets. Thanks for that by the way."

Remus nods. "So she's taking her OWLs soon?"

"A pre-OWLs sort of? Not the actual one, I think. She'll have that once they get the go signal from the Ministry, yeah."

"That's no problem, is it?"

"Nah. Hogwarts has got it all sorted out. Special case and all. She's only been officially studying a few months, but she's been learning on her own pretty fast the last three years, and her initial diagnostic tests were promising. They reckoned she might not even need extra years anymore. They just need a signature or something."

Remus nods. He's taken James's quill and is doodling on another spare piece of parchment himself: a geometric illustration of the sun hiding behind a cloud, the outlines of both objects neatly done spirals and curves, the rays of his sun straight and perfectly angled, dashing from the peeking semi-circle all the way to the edges of the parchment. "Show off," mutters James beside him, looking over, and Remus huffs and elbows his side.

Tuesday afternoons are always slow. There's the occasional customer every now and then, and James and Remus take turns attending to them; otherwise they beguile most of their time having shooting competitions (James wins at this by a landslide), doodling (Remus is a far better artist than James), talking about anything that strikes their fancy (James wouldn't shut up about Lily), and planning their next prank on Sirius. They are just deciding on charming his next crossword puzzle to be unsolveable when three raps on the window cut through their discussion.

"Must be from Peter," says Remus, hopping off his stool to let the letter-bearing owl in. "He probably needs help transporting the stock or something... No, hey, it's from Hogwarts!"

James deserts his chair to see—and sure enough, the scroll was sealed with scarlet wax bearing their old school's crest. Remus hands it to him. "You're not keeping an eleven-year old sprog of yours here, are you?"

"Ha-bloody-ha, Moony Lupin," James mutters, opening the letter. "It's McGonagall... It, er... It says Lily wasn't present today."

"Did it say why?"

"No. She's never missed one before, and she didn't say anything about... McGonagall's sent me Lily's notes and a schedule of her next tests, do you mind if I—" He looks up to find Remus already reaching up to take James's coat off the rack for him. "Thanks, mate," James says as he dons it. A fount of worry has started to build up in his stomach, but he tries his best to ignore it.

"Ring the shop if you need anything," says Remus. And then, realizing how grim his tone and expression were when he said that, he adds, more upbeat, "Say hi to her for me."

James musters a smile. "Will do. See you later."


	12. petunia

**number six**

* * *

The first house James rings to ask where the Evans sisters live tells him a residence number at once. He suspects then, by the uncanny speed and confidence with which they answered, that the address is deliberately incorrect. Understandable, he reasons, as after all it would be careless for a close-knit neighbourhood to divulge information of that sort to strangers. So he starts explaining that he's a friend and that he really _does_ know Lily, but the old woman shakes her head and says, "Oh no, dear. I've seen you walk her home many times. You kiss an awful lot, too." James rubs the back of his neck and chokes a little. The old woman's giggle is high-pitched and warm. "It really _is_ number six…"

James thanks her, and then finds himself before Lily's front door not much later, hesitating before the doorbell. Before he can ring, however, the door flies open, and he's face to face with someone who just _can't_ be Lily's sister... at first sight. Turns out the woman's unreasonably sour greeting expression has contorted her facial features beyond proper initial assessment. But, yeah, the longer James stares, the more similarities he notices, and the less he is to conclude that the giggly old woman he asked had given him the wrong address. Petunia's fringe, although of different colour and length, falls on the exact same place around her face as Lily's does; their eyebrows furrow the same way when upset; and, although Petunia's lips are thinner, they purse in annoyance the same way Lily's do sometimes. This last observation in particular brings James to his senses. He grins and waves, and then immediately drops his hand, realizing how stupid waving is in this distance. He just almost slapped her face.

"Yes?" asks Petunia, and James guesses by her tone that she must have an idea who he is. He doesn't think Petunia's the type who glares and snaps at visitors; it's just that James is... a special case.

"Hullo. Is Lily here?"

"No." She closes the door.

James sticks his foot out and realizes a millisecond too late that he just acted out on yet another stupid idea. His foot gets caught between the frame and the door in a muffled thud, and pain instantly shoots up from his ankle. "Fuck," he gasps, wincing horribly. And then, blinking away the tears welling in his eyes, "I'm sorry, did she say where she would be?"

Petunia scrutinizes him in a close, narrow-eyed glare. James leans back as discreetly as he can. When she steps out on the doorstep, pulling the door close behind her—in need of even closer inspection?—James gulps nervously. "You're that Potter boy, aren't you?"

"Yes, ma'am." She made it sound like 'Potter boy' was synonymous to some criminal.

"Then shouldn't you know? I thought you were giving her lessons on all that rabbit out of a hat nonsense."

James bristles, remembering in that moment what Petunia did to Lily all those years ago. Sure, it had mostly been their dead aunt, and Lily did say her sister honestly meant well, but still. "It's not nonsense," he says, his nerves going down a notch. "She didn't attend her lessons today."

Even she seems surprised by this. "And she didn't say that she wouldn't be going?" she asks, her tone different now. James can't place it, but the worry inside of him stirs back awake.

"No, she didn't."

"She hasn't talked to you all day?"

Scratch that. His nerves are back on all high. Lily's sister has nothing to do with it now. "No."

"Wait here. I'll go get my coat." She goes back inside. She leaves the door open.

"What? Where are we going?" he calls out after her. "Do you know where she is?"

She reappears with a hat and a coat and is putting on gloves when she answers, "Take me to your hospital." She's not quite meeting his eye, but it doesn't require eye-contact to see that, even though she's making it clear that she is every bit displeased about the situation, she's also concerned.

"What?" asks James uselessly.

"You have a hospital, don't you? For... your kind?"

James's brain seems to have fogged up. "What?"

Petunia exhales a long sigh, done putting her gloves on now. "Why's my sister seeing a moron like you? Is this normally how your conversations go? She speaks and you just nod and ogle at her?"

James's impatience and worry are too much to focus on the dig. "Why would she be in St. Mungo's?"

She winces at the name. "Just take me to where the goddamned place is."


	13. st mungo's

**st. mungo's**

* * *

James doesn't exactly hate St. Mungo's, or fear it for that matter. But this happens, and when it does, he can't say he's surprised.

He still does come here, of course. He met Lily here once even. He comes with his mates every time Remus has appointments, even stays when said appointments require Remus to stay overnight or longer. One time, they all came here to appease Peter, who caught something and panicked because he was so sure it was Dragon Pox, and he was so _convinced_ that he was going to bloody _die_. James had been fine in all of those. He didn't mind coming and staying and going. He figured that was because he knew, in every one of those instances, what he was here for. There's always that. That makes all the difference, he realizes now; having a solid reason to be here, an anchor to keep himself from getting eaten up by the pale taunting walls and the suffocating air and the hallways that never ever seem to fucking end. _Now_ he doesn't know why Lily's here. How does her sister just _know_? How long till someone bursts out of one of these doors to tell him she didn't make it? That they tried to save her?

 _Okay stop right there stop right there_ —

There is lead in his lungs. His hands are shaking. He feels a severe compulsion to tear his skin off, or punch a wall. He reminds himself that _he wasn't even here._ Back then, he... It was a different hallway, there were different noises, it was a _different person._ _She_ wasn't here. She was never here. She wasn't lucky enough to have that much time.

It's... not remembering what happened, exactly. It's remembering the feeling. It felt exactly like this.

(This is what it feels like to fly. This is why he falls.)

He tries to keep himself in check, especially because Lily's sister is with him and is being even more derisive than ever in the very brief time he's known her. James dislikes her so much so far, but he's also thankful that her attitude is making him all the more determined not to let himself—there's no other word for it—fall the fuck apart. But by Godric's sword and grave is it such an effort though. He counts his footsteps, focuses on his breathing, counts the room numbers to remind himself that this hallway _does_ end, that the digits don't run infinite, that he can keep her voice away if he concentrates enough… There is no pitch at the end of it. There is no chanting crowd. There will be no funeral tomorrow.

A door opens from the right. It didn't even make that much racket, honestly, but James jumps in great surprise, his torrential pulse deafening.

Fuck.

Ah, _fuck_.

James looks away from the old Healer who just stepped out into the hall, doing his best to keep her out of his sight until she passes. He stops walking. Breathe. Just breathe.

"Is it this one?" Petunia asks, stopping by where he did. She stares up at the door nearest, the one across from where the Healer just emerged from. "I thought they said the Kurt Ward?"

James doesn't respond. He faces the wall nearest to him and takes off his glasses. _Blur everything out. Try to make your breaths at least_ sound _even. Get it together._

"You look like you're going to throw up," observes Petunia mechanically, stepping beside him to peer up at his face. Perhaps that's her sweet way of asking if someone's okay, being the charmer that she is.

"It's just a little way down," says James, his voice hoarse. He needs a moment and he doesn't owe Petunia an explanation. "I'll be along. It's _Kirke_ Ward, not Kurt. Six or seven more rooms from here, the one on the right. There's a sign."

"Alright." She surveys him with those thin lips again, a look torn between antipathy and concern. She leaves, but comes back after only a few steps away. "Look, trust me when I say I don't particularly care for you, but Lily might want to know why her boyfriend's looking so ready to vomit all over the corridor."

"Don't tell her."

She quirks up an eyebrow.

"Just a bad Bertie bean."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm fine."

"Yes, you definitely look it."

"It's a hospital, isn't it? I can scream and Healers will be all over me if ever."

Petunia looks at him like he's gone absolutely mad. Maybe he has.

"Go ahead," he urges her, turning away.

She leaves for real.


	14. the last of summer

**the last pieces of summer**

* * *

He's still a mite pale when he enters Lily's ward, but no longer that horrible shade of green, and he regains even more colour when he sees that Lily is sitting on the bed; not propped on pillows and motionless and all the alarming things his brain's fabricated. She's talking to her sister, sat on the side with her legs crossed at the ankles and swinging over the floor. James lingers on the doorway, trying not to sag too much in relief. When he closes the door, the sound catches the sisters' attention, and Lily pokes her head to see around Petunia's blocking figure. She smiles apologetically at him. "Hey, you. Sorry. Did you worry too much?"

James tries to glare at her. "Yes."

Petunia rolls her eyes. But she also surveys him, presumably wondering about his strange episode in the hallway. James stares right back, hoping she'd drop it and never mention it again. To her sister _and_ to him. But she only says, "They're discharging her," and James swallows in relief. "We're going home." She pauses, and then, staring at James but not quite _at_ James, she says flatly, "Thank you for taking me here."

"No problem." He says it like he means it as much as he can, wanting to thank her in some way for leaving his hallway thing untackled.

"I'll leave you two to talk. But don't take long." To Lily, she says, "You know what this place does to me."

Lily nods. The moment the door thuds close, she turns to James. "She thinks it's abnormal."

"What is?"

"All this. She still thinks it's circus stuff. Freak stuff."

"Yeah, she said I was teaching you hats-off-rabbits'-mouths nonsense."

Lily laughs. She taps the space beside her as a way to beckon him.

When he sits, the bed creaks. The ward's three other beds are unoccupied. There is a vase of flowers on Lily's bedside, but they're almost wilted now. Yellow roses.

"Hey, your favorite," mutters James.

Lily follows his line of eye. "Lucky coincidence."

The petals are soft beneath James's fingers when he reaches out to skim them. Two come off even with very little to no force; he watches them fall, the last pieces of summer dead on the table. "They're not much a sight now."

"I think they're still pretty."

"Evans."

"Hm?"

James takes her hand. "Why are we here?"

"Tuney brought you here, didn't she?"

James gives her an exasperated look.

"Well, I mean, technically _you_ brought her here."

He sighs. "No, I mean, were you—are you sick? Why didn't you owl?"

He sees her smile before she rests her head against his shoulder and it disappears from view. Her legs start swinging again, and her hand is a bit cold, but then again so is the whole room. "Fatigue, I think. I missed breakfast, and I didn't eat much for lunch, and I haven't been sleeping well. I sort of... collapsed in Hogsmeade, on the way to Hogwarts."

" _What?_ "

"Oh, don't you worry. It was just exhaustion and hunger and all that. I was too excited for lessons that I missed them, I'm an idiot. Anyway, I didn't think it would take so long. I thought I could still go after, or owl you at least—although I didn't know how I'd get an owl here—but then they're wheeling me to these tests; just in case, they say, and next thing I know—"

"Has this happened before?"

Lily chews on her lower lip. She doesn't answer.

James points out, "Your sister knew where to look right away."

Quietly: "Once or twice."

"You just—you faint? What happens?"

"Yes. Sort of. It's nothing to worry about—"

"Don't downplay it, please."

She squeezes his hand and smiles up at him, her chin digging on his shoulder. "They're letting me out now."

"Nothing came up on the tests?"

At first he thinks she didn't hear, because she turns away to rest her head properly again. Then she shakes her head. "I was just tired."

James can hear Petunia's impatient pacing outside the door. "Just—just take care of yourself, yeah?"

"I will."


	15. a first for everything

**a first time for everything**

* * *

It's barely two weeks later, evening, when he gets to be in the Evanses' living room at last. Petunia is out for most of the night—probably the entire night, really, Lily tells him—with some bloke called Bernie or something. They sit on the couch, decide to watch Doctor Who reruns. He's thrown his arm around her shoulders, she's tucked her legs beneath her. He plays with her hair. She sighs a laugh when something funny happens on the screen. Otherwise, they're quiet.

James's mind is too preoccupied to concentrate on the episode, to be honest. Something Lily said earlier today, while they were in the kitchen making snacks. Something James barely dodged, a question he would have been forced to address only the postman rang the bell just then, and James was, for lack of better word, literally saved by the bell.

Funnily enough, it's only when he hears the TARDIS landing sound effects that he's occasionally dragged back to the present.

When the episode finishes, she addresses his thoughts. He knew she would, hence his mild apprehension about the end credits—except he expected her to bring the subject back up with an _apology_ , and not with, "Alright, so why don't you want to then?"

 _Okay_ , James thinks, still staring at the telly. Cool. Alright. He can handle this.

His hand abandons her locks and falls conscious and rigid on her shoulder. "I can't."

"What do you mean you can't? Of course you can." She turns the telly off. She sounds so... encouraging, which, in spite of himself, only makes James's temper rise. Not fast, not to great heights, but it _is_ rising. "You've played since God knows when," Lily keeps at it, "and you were the youngest league Captain for—"

"I know what I was, thanks."

She catches his tone. "And now you're mad. Why are you mad?"

"Why do you want me to teach you? You already can fly. I've seen you."

"You've seen me fall."

"I don't care. You were flying. You play Quidditch a lot with those kids. You play with Sirius and the others. Even Hooch is impressed with you, you know."

"I wanna fly like you."

"I don't fly like anything. Not anymore."

"Yes, that too. Why don't you fly anymore? Why did you give Quidditch up?"

It's not her fault, not at all, but that felt like a punch in the gut. Two punches.

He doesn't know what's changed. Haven't they wordlessly set up walls around these subjects? Why is she breaking them now? It wasn't his fault she shared the bit about Hogwarts and her memories. That was Benjy. That wasn't James. He'd wanted to hear it, but he never asked. Why is she asking now?

He extricates his arm from her, leans forward to grab his glass from the coffee table, and takes a long, slow swig off the blue lemonade she's made for them. He wishes it's something else. He lets the silence stretch.

"Are you really going to brood all night?" she asks, watching his every move with a raised brow. "Because this is the first time you're here."

He drops the glass, refills it, but doesn't think he can take another drink. He already feels so damn sloshy. He leans back and tips his head, staring at the ceiling. "I can leave," he suggests quietly.

He doesn't see it, but he's pretty sure she just rolled her eyes. "No. Talk to me."

"I am talking to you, Evans. You're the one who's not listening. I'm telling you that I don't want to teach you how to fly, that the answer is no."

"Okay, well, I've asked you other questions since then."

"I can't answer them."

"Why not?"

"Can you stop?"

"No, I want to know—"

"I don't know!"

"Of course you do! How can you not know?"

He grabs the nearest throw pillow and covers his face. In a muffled voice: "I don't want to talk about it."

"Why—"

He blindly grabs for another pillow and shoves it in her direction. "Evans, please. Shut up."

She throws his pathetic weapon to the floor. "But I really want to learn—"

Fucking hell. He drops the pillow on his face and glares at her. She glares back.

"Why," she begins dangerously, before he can speak, "are you being a prick about this?"

Alright, that's it. "Were you hired by someone to—to seduce me into a relationship, and get me to talk about this?"

"What?"

"Because I must admit, that's the most creative yet. Are you going to sell this story? Is this what all of it has just been about?"

She just blinks in utter bewilderment for a moment, and then she steals the pillow from his hands and whacks him straight in the face with it, specs and all. "You're a prick _and_ a lunatic."

"Yeah, and I just remembered that someone needs me for something somewhere," he says, fuming, righting his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose where they dug hard when she hit him. It doesn't hurt, not really, she didn't hit that hard. But he's mad. He gets to his feet.

She remains seated, crosses her arms and legs, chin high. "Fine. Leave. I don't care."

"Leaving."

"Good."

"Good."

He slams the door behind him.

But he doesn't leave.

He stays on the doorstep, the biting cold making him shiver. He's left his gloves inside. The racket he made with the door still rings in his ears, but it also dulls the pounding of his blood, dulls it down into... into a horrible, crawling hum of _guilt_.

Fantastic.

Mentally kicking himself, he turns around to knock again, and say sorry, and maybe try to explain without really explaining why he was, in fact, a prick (and a lunatic) about it—

The door opens before he can knock. She seems to have forgotten how to breathe too, so that makes two of them. They just stare at each other—surprised, guilty. (And maybe just maybe she's also thankful that he hasn't left yet.)

They both say "I'm sorry" at the same time.

"Would you like to..."

"Can I come back in?"

She nods. The first step he takes is straight into her arms, for she hugs him the moment he crosses the threshold. "Sorry," she mumbles against his jumper. "I was nagging."

"I was rude."

"Yes, you were, but I was annoying."

"Yes, you were, but I was really rude."

She steps back and smiles; he smiles back, ruffles her hair, and they go back to the couch.

She turns the telly back on, but nothing's interesting anymore. They end up making out, to no one's surprise. And, well, possibly as an outlet for the unexpected surge of adrenaline for both of them earlier, they end up almost shagging right there on the couch. As many times as Lily has pointed out how she couldn't care less what her sister thinks though, she utilizes the last of her self-control to stop just in time to take things upstairs. "She'd kill us," she says, in between kisses and popping buttons up the steps. "And she would know, trust me..."

They do make it to her room, just not quite to the bed. He doesn't think she minds much. He certainly doesn't.

(No more questions about flying or Quidditch are raised.)


	16. some news

**some news**

* * *

Puddlemere United needs a new Chaser.

Sirius doesn't ask him directly about it, but he notices the unrest on James's face the moment he walks in. With a tip of the chin towards the Prophet in James's hands, he asks, "Some dark wizard rising to conquer the world? Bald, funny nose, calls himself Lord something-French-sounding?"

If Sirius was aiming to distract him, he just succeeded. "What," he blanks out.

"I was trying to guess what's got your face all—" Sirius tries to mimic James's distressed face. It looks so stupid that James considers rolling the paper up and throwing it at him. "What's up?"

James takes a sip of his coffee before responding. He doesn't bother feigning nonchalance. It's Sirius. There'd be no point. "Terrence Hunter is injured."

Sirius is quiet a beat too long. In the end he settles for, "Good morning to you, too."

They're quiet. Sirius pours himself coffee, and then sits down on the other end of the table. "How long till—"

"A year? More?"

"Oh, really? That bad?"

"Two bludgers. Base of the spine, back of the head." James slides down the newspaper across the table to him.

Sirius makes a face as his eyes rove the article. "Ouch."

"Yep."

"No substitutes?"

"They have reserves, of course," says James. "These people are always scouting." He pauses. "Still, there's... There's a tryout next month."

"You goin'?" Sirius isn't looking at him, eyes on the Prophet. Unmoving. It's kind of funny how they both seem to have held their breaths.

Sirius threw the question out before he could think it through, James can tell. And not just so he'd know what James thinks, but so _James_ himself will have a reason to face it, too. Because James wouldn't. As in _couldn't_ wouldn't. Not a chance in hell, if left on his own with it. He wouldn't ask himself that question, not without Sirius—and it _has_ to be Sirius—asking him first. Isn't that why James brought it up to begin with? So Sirius can ask him? Steer him towards the subject without having to struggle with maddening mental debates?

Merlin, when will he stop being so weird about this?

And how in all hell does Sirius know what to do with him? Thank god Sirius knows what to do with him. James doesn't fucking know what to do with himself.

"I don't know," answers James after a while.

"Well, don't stress it," says Sirius, not quite succeeding to hide his relief. ( _Is_ it relief? James thinks it's relief.)

"Yeah, I know. I'm not. I just... I don't know."

"That's fine, Prongs," Sirius assures him quickly. "Can I just say I'm glad it's not a flat out no?"

"Do I have a choice?"

He huffs and smirks at him. "Alright, I won't."

Silence. They stare at each other over the rim of their cups, just sizing the other up.

James can't help it—he rolls his eyes. "But you—"

"I am, yeah," cuts Sirius, nodding, grinning. "I'm very glad that it's not a flat out no, James."

"I really don't know, though."

"That's good enough for me. I'm not raising my hopes up or anything. Just glad it's not a flat out no. Don't worry. It's okay whatever. Really."

"Okay... Thanks."

Sirius toasts him his coffee cup.


	17. the manor

**the manor**

* * *

"Bloody _hell_ , this is yours?" Lily asks, when they reach the double-door entrance of the massive house. They apparated a little away from the residence hill proper, and it was more or less an uneventful trek from the Holly Crescent apparition site to the manor.

James just grins at her as he pushes the doors open. He gestures for her to step inside first.

Lily is in utter awe. Not just now, while she gapes at the high ceiling and the spacious foyer and the grand staircase, but the entire time all the way from Holly Crescent. She stopped by the frozen lake to marvel at the expanse (and to punch James's shoulder and disbelievingly shake her head at him).

James'd be lying if he said he wasn't proud—the property _is_ massive, and it's quite a sight. "Wait till you see it in the summer," he'd told her.

She asks why he doesn't live here. The answer is that he can't—he can't even stay here for a whole bloody fortnight. The house is... He doesn't really know. Angry? It's angry at him. Or maybe it's the other way around. Either way, there's too much in the corners, a certain darkness that taunts and snatches him away when he's left too long on his own. He doesn't tell her that, though. He tells her that it feels empty, that it's way too big for one. That's not at all hard to believe, is it? It _is_ partly true. He tells her that he doesn't feel his presence here, not enough to dispel the absence of people who will never ever walk through those doors again.

He tours Lily around and prattles on about a practiced repertoire of happy tales: childhood adventures, Christmas stuff, the house elves—the last he's sent to Hogwarts, because he didn't want to bring them to the flat, but he didn't want to leave them here masterless either. "Just cleaning the house over and over without any substantial orders to keep them busy, you know?" he says. They're okay, the house elves. He checks on them from time to time, and sometimes they come back to tidy up. Sometimes they even answer to James's summons in the flat, when he's... er, desperate. It's very, very seldom, he promises, when Lily narrows her eyes at that. He tells her about the time he got his head stuck between the balusters. The time he tried to have floating candles in his room when he was twelve, Hogwarts Great Hall style, and ended up almost setting the manor's right wing on fire.

He visits every now and then; on special occasions, when he feels nostalgic, when—as is the case now—Beth the caretaker and the rest of her family have to go check on her dad who lives on the other side of the country. But these visits are rare. He also brings his mates with him when he comes, especially when he has to stay for more than a day. They'll be here later—this time probably with Mary, too. He just wanted to show Lily around first.

When they get to his dad's potions room, he curses himself for totally forgetting about the Quidditch field. Not of its presence—like he'll _ever_ —but that the potions room is a perfect vantage point of it, and it's impossible to mistake it for something else other than what it is the moment the windows are thrown open. Which is what Lily just did. Throw the windows wide open.

She turns around to find him hanging back by the ingredient shelf, an elbow propped against an emptied ledge. He meets her eye. He doesn't know if she's heard of Terrence being injured, if she's reckoned that James's former team is in current need of a new Chaser. He _does_ know that she follows the league, and that she knows who Terrence bloody Hunter is. He's heard her talk about him to Peter one time. He knows she's subscribed to the Prophet as well.

Still, James finds himself pathetically hoping she hasn't found out about it somehow. They've been together for hours now, since he picked her up in Cokeworth, and she hasn't asked anything. Maybe she didn't read the paper today. Or maybe she did, but she doesn't care about the league as much as it appears.

On the other hand, she doesn't have to have read the goddamn article to spring questions. They haven't talked since That Day at her house, and, he figures, fantastic make-up sex or not: they _have_ broken down the walls now. She's already asked him _the_ questions. What better subject opener than the family house Quidditch pitch, where it all started, spectacularly sprawled right there before them? What's going to stop her now?

She smiles at him. He tries to return it, but he can't. Anytime now.

She faces the view out the window once more, surveys the field and the snow-capped groves beyond. Her hair ruffles in the breeze, her sad small smile still in place. James waits, and waits, and drops his hand on his side, and waits, and shoves his hands in his pockets, and _waits_ —but it doesn't come. The questions. Accusations. Nothing. The room is colder, but he feels that he isn't, and then he's not waiting anymore. Just staring at her.

"Let's go to your room next," she says at last.

He only nods. He seems to have lost his voice.

He remembers to close the windows before they leave, and for the first time his heart doesn't tighten at the sight of the pitch.


	18. the manor pt 2

**the manor pt. 2**

* * *

In the afternoon when Sirius, Remus, Peter, and Mary arrive, James throws himself into exhaustion as best (and as discreetly) as he can—volunteers for mundane tasks, wrestles Peter over the littlest things, suggests skating on the frozen lake, snowball fights. He cooks, does the dishes, cleans the place up, fetches firewood from the shack, does it all without wand aid. He catches Lily look at him funny all throughout, but he grins at her reassuringly each time. He needs to be exhausted enough if he wants to be able to sleep here tonight.

And he does.

The last thing he remembers is greeting the familiar fear of having to wait for sunrise _forever. G_ reeting now, not dreading, because Lily's head was resting on his chest and he hasn't felt that comforted in a long while. But for once, for a bit, he does fall asleep in his own old room again. Around three in the morning, however, he wakes up, breaths heavy, heart thudding, the dark ceiling feeling like it's falling onto him over and over.

Nothing new.

He's amazed, in fact, that he even got more than an hour. Last time, he somehow managed to stay up here for thirty-six hours straight. The boys had to fetch him because they knew he wouldn't be able to head back alone, being absolutely tired-drunk. They used Peter's old family car, too, because they _also_ knew he was going to crash immediately upon leaving the property, like some brand of magic on its own, and it was a risk getting him back to the flat on Sirius's motorbike. (They learned that the hard way. It's a bit funny, remembering—him falling asleep on the back of the motorbike and literally falling off, Sirius swerving in surprise and falling into a ditch. If only the circumstances surrounding the whole thing weren't so damn sullen.)

Now, he checks his watch, the hands and numbers luminous in the dark, presses the lightest of kisses on Lily's temple, and then gets off the bed with utmost care so as not to wake her. Heart still not quite calmed down, he fetches his glasses, his winter clothes, and then makes his way down to the pitch.

He's chilled to the bone when he gets there. He reaches the broom shed just short of the leafless trees lining the court, has trouble prying the door open, and then stares at his unused, untouched broom. Glares at it. He'd probably freeze to death if he flew now, if he even managed to take it from its nook, but he'd take freezing over not being able to even touch it.

 _Just get it. Just fly. Play again._

He reaches out for it.

 _Just do it, goddamnit._

But his gloved hand drops after stupidly hovering over the handle, knowing full well what happens when he does take it.

God, he hates himself so much. What, he's just going to stay like this forever? Dying to do something, fearing what lies beyond that want, and just living in this stupid limbo that's its in-between?

He slams the shed door close and mutters the worst string of curse words he knows.

He walks to the foot of one of the tall Quidditch hoops and sits down on the icy clearing floor, leaning and thudding his head back against the ice-cold pole.

 _Pitch dark_ , he thinks, when he looks up and finds it difficult to make out the hoop in the darkness. _Quidditch pitch dark._ He chuckles to himself. _You're off your rockers, James Potter. Way, way fucking off..._

He stays there until the grey sunrise finally pats his cheeks with colour. When he gets up, he's sore from the cold and from staying still for too long.

The others wake up to him making breakfast. He grins at them over the ready, loaded plates on the counter. He's done this a million times. He's fine.

Sirius has his I'm-upset-but-I'm-going-to-try-and-look-like-I-don't-know-and-care face the entire morning. Mary compliments everything served, but that can easily be just her being her usual nice self. Peter tries to sigh as inconspicuously as he can a thousand times over his coffee cup. Only Remus successfully hides his vexation, ever the most skilled at keeping to himself among them, and James really only knows because he's known him for long enough to see through his facade.

They must have oriented Lily about this strange but not uncommon occurrence, too, because besides hugging him really tight when she sees him first thing, she doesn't ask about or comment on his horribly chapped lips, the dark circles under his eyes, or on the fact that she woke up in bed alone.


	19. snags

**some snags**

* * *

December 8th is a Saturday and a full moon.

Which is why James—or any of the rest of the Marauders, for that matter—can't be with Lily on the scheduled day of her special-case pre-OWL's, to be taken at the Ministry of Magic. No problem with that, as Mary is free and can go with her instead—it's just that the boys have to lie about Remus's lycanthropy to people they care about yet again, and they all hate it. To James's further distress, Remus expresses how he feels especially guilty that, in addition to dragging the boys with him with the secret, he can't even properly apologize to Lily for stealing James from her on such an important day. James chuckles, squishes Remus's cheeks just because, and assures him he's fine. Lily's fine, it's fine, _really_ , and none of it is ever Remus's fault.

They consider telling Lily that Remus is sick and in the hospital and they need to be there for him, but the need for all the Marauders to be present around him the entire time would make his illness come off as something serious. Which, well, it _is_ serious, true, but only on a particular day every month, and they reckon Lily and Mary are perceptive enough to figure it all out from that eventually. Besides, that excuse would also require them to ask Healers to lie in case Lily and Mary visit, which they _would_ —come visit, that is—knowing them.

So they settle for telling the girls that they have an important meeting with a potential investor. A really big one they can't miss. They all feel equally horrible when Lily and Mary buy it without question, and with lots of enthusiastic support even.

All that said, James only gets to see Lily three days after her exams. They are at the Three Broomsticks and they're supposed to be looking over job openings in the Prophet for her, but while the papers are spread on the table with their butterbeer, the graying pages end up abandoned for catch-up talk—her exams, the boys' fake investment meeting, Petunia and Vernon (that's his real name, by the way, not Bernie), who are considering moving in together. Lily looks forward to possibly having the house to herself soon. Her exam results are supposed to be owled any time within the month too, and it's giving her the jitters, she says.

When they finally exhaust all the topics of that sort, they decide to return to the newspaper ad pages, and that's when, with her eyes still trained on the Prophet in her hands, Lily tells him, "Mary and I ran into someone at the Ministry, by the way."

"Yeah? Who?"

"Some bloke called Mulciber."

The first thing James registers at the mention of that name is worry—but Lily's here, and she's okay. Whatever it was, it's all over with. It's silly to be worried about anything now. And then—well, after that it's just anger. "Did you punch him in the face?"

"I did sort of injure him actually, yes."

James drops the paper. Lily doesn't even _know_ Mulciber. "What happened?"

She puts down hers, too. "Apparently, you and your mates kicked him out of Hogwarts."

He raises an eyebrow. " _Dumbledore_ kicked him out of Hogwarts. Good for him too, because if he stayed there any longer after what he did, he'd have had us to answer to."

"James—"

"Mary told you what he did, didn't she?"

"Yes, she did. She's told me way before. Will you calm down? I'm not accusing you. I know what he did, and what kind of person he is. I know what _you_ did. I'm just—saying."

"Sorry. Okay."

"And you're not listening—I said I injured him."

"Meaning he did something stupid, which isn't news, considering that's all he ever does in his life."

Lily sighs.

"What was he even doing there?" asks James.

"He was there to fix his papers. He wants to be Puddlemere United's new Chaser."

James reminds himself that he's no longer Captain. It's no longer his team. He doesn't care. But he does, and his hands curl into a fist over the table. He grabs his mug before Lily can notice, and starts slowly swirling the remaining frothy liquid around in the glass. "And?"

"And he can't be, because his Hogwarts credentials make him unable to meet Puddlemere United's ethical requirements."

Yeah. James figured. That, at least, gives him some sort of satisfaction.

"So you can just imagine his disposition," continues Lily, "having gone all the way up there to appeal his case to the DMGS, getting turned down, and then meeting the reason why he got turned down on his way out in the Atrium."

Mary. Of course. James can imagine it, and he's still aware that it's stupid to be worried now, but he worries anyway. "Did he do something?"

"He tried to," Lily says as-a-matter-of-factly. "He had the sense to wait for us outside too, and—"

"I'm going to kill him."

With obvious exasperation, she takes his wrist and makes him drop the mug; some of his drink's already sloshed onto the table. "James?" She tries to catch his anger-ridden eyes. "Calm down. I'm alive, Mary's alive, I'm here with you right now. Honestly, you're not giving me enough credit."

"Oh, I have no doubt that he lost spectacularly to you. He's a fucking moron, and you're you. I'm just killing him anyways. For trying."

She rolls her eyes, shakes her head. "Gryffindor boys," she mutters. And then, "I felt a bit guilty at first, jinxing him like that. I didn't mean to cause any serious harm. I didn't know him personally, only through stories, and I… I don't even know what I did exactly. There wasn't an incantation, I just sort of... I think my adrenaline just kicked in and some defensive spell just... Mary said it was one of those weird bursts of magic thing... Seeing her terrified like that, though. I hated the effect he had on her. Almost feels like the damage was worth it."

"It _is_ worth it," says James. "Lily, Mulciber deserves more than whatever you did to him."

"Yeah, he was... something. I think I broke his leg. Like, he was sprawled there on the pavement immobile and he still won't stop. He just kept trying to jinx us from the ground, saying the most horrible things, and we couldn't leave because he somehow contained us in that little stupid patch of lot…"

James is really having trouble keeping his temper in check. But he curbs it. It won't be any good to any of them. "How did you get away?"

"Someone came to intervene."

"From the Ministry?" asks James hopefully. "Is he locked up?"

"Not from the Ministry, no. From... He was looking for Mulciber. They probably went there together and he wondered where Mulciber's disappeared to. When he found us, he didn't exactly defend us, but he did... stop it? At first he just told Mulciber it was pointless to keep at it with his leg already broken, but the stupid wanker wouldn't listen to him, so the new bloke knocked him out with some spell and then advised us to go before he comes to. We didn't—I mean, we weren't sure that _he_ wasn't going to attack us behind our backs, and we told him that. So he heaved Mulciber off the ground and just Disapparated them both away himself."

James frowns. It doesn't sound like anyone from Mulciber's usual circle of sick, psychotic friends. "Did Mary recognize him?"

"Yeah," says Lily, and she picks up her mug this time. "She said his name's Regulus, and that he's Sirius's brother."


	20. christmas

**christmas**

* * *

"I know what you're all getting me! Look. Hmm. You." Lily starts with Peter, who is on the couch nearest the hearth. He sits straighter at being addressed. "You'll get me food," Lily declares, and Peter's eyes widen at once. He starts to speak, but she holds up a finger. "No, wait—you'll _make_ me food. You'll bake me cupcakes or biscuits or muffins or something."

She doesn't pause to give him time to respond, the look on his face enough confirmation.

"You," continues Lily, moving on to Remus, who is on the floor across from her. "You'll get me something practical. Like... Like a kitchen utensil. Or a textbook. Or a wristwatch."

Remus just stares at her. His expression shouldn't give anything away; it's perfectly passive, as usual, but his silence does that for him. Lily seems satisfied with this, as she turns next to the person beside Remus.

"You, Macdonald, will get me... something that'll surprise me."

Mary's lips quirk up. "So you don't know what I'm getting you."

"I won't be surprised that I will be surprised," says Lily, but that doesn't deter Mary, so she smiles at her and says, "Fine, I have no idea what it is. You're the wild card."

Mary takes a prim sip of her pumpkin spice latte. "Take that, boys."

Lily shoots her with a finger gun. "Black," she continues. The person in question is sprawled on the love seat behind her, perpendicular to the grate, the same one James is on. His legs are on James's lap and his eyes are closed. "Well, I'd actually say you're the best one," announces Lily. Behind her, James raises an eyebrow. She doesn't see it, being on the floor, but she must know that he just made a protest of some kind, because she reaches out a hand to pat his knee. "Sorry, Potter, but Sirius beats all of you in gift-giving. Hands down."

"Keep talking," drawls Sirius, eyes still closed, smirking and crossing his legs at the ankles. James reaches out for the nearest toss pillow and aims for his face, but Sirius catches it without even opening his eyes.

Lily puts her mug of hot chocolate down on the carpeted floor and shifts her position so she could see Sirius. "You get something thoughtful—Now I know _you_ do too," she adds to James, for he's started to make a sound to interrupt again, "But yours is always—besides thoughtful— _expensive_ , and—and _grand_ , and not that I particularly hate that, I do appreciate it very much, but Sirius knows how to do thoughtful with three knuts. Which makes him, generally and objectively speaking, the best at gift-giving."

Everyone but Lily narrows their eyes at Sirius at this (he still won't open his, and that smirk's still on his face), but then Remus nods at length and says, only a little begrudgingly, "Okay, that's true."

"But I already bought the ingredients!" whinges Peter, slouching in his seat again.

"Oh, no, no," Lily hurries to say, "I'm not saying I don't like them. I just _know_. I love your stuff!"

"Yeah?"

Lily nods in earnest.

"Well, if you say so."

Lily frowns at the rest of them. "You're not going to buy new Christmas presents just to prove me wrong, are you?"

"I know I'm not," says Sirius. "'Cause I'm the best."

"Nor me," says Mary. "I'm second best. Like, really close. In fact, I could be best, it's just conditional at the moment."

Lily grins. "Remus?"

"Nah."

Lily cranes her neck to look up at James. "Potter?"

"Nah," he echoes Remus, in the exact same manner and tone. Remus rolls his eyes.

" _James_."

James laughs. "Fine, I won't."

* * *

And he doesn't.

Not technically.

James tells her that three hours into Christmas Day— _I didn't get you a new present! Not_ technically—when Peter has passed out from inebriation, and Mary, Marlene, Sirius, Remus, and Peter have found someplace else in the Evanses' house to sleep in. When there's only the two of them up in Lily's bedroom, and she reminds him—fondly, proudly, not at all accusatorily—that she was right about him and his grand, expensive presents, he tells her that he promised not to buy her any more presents, and he did deliver on that.

With her bed covered in crumbs and spill-stains and wrappers and bottles and mugs, they both resorted to lying on the floor. Close, but not touching. They've taken all of her pillows and blankets down with them, but James chooses to have one of his arms behind his head. Lily's hands are clasped together on her midriff. In shared blissful calm, they watch her ceiling—which, at the moment, isn't so much a ceiling as a believable replica of a clear, starry sky. The heating charms they've placed in the room has made it a little foggy, although not so much that it ruins the view. The swirling wisps look like clouds, in fact, seeming more alive and distant and mystical than they are, adding to the dreaminess of the whole thing. Outside, snow falls without hurry. Everything is orange and black and white and midnight blue.

"You got me an owl," says Lily, her eyes trained up ahead. "And _this_. You—you literally got me the sky."

"You like it?"

"I love it," her voice slips into a reverent whisper, "so much." James turns his head to look at her, the floor soft and warm on his cheek, his glasses digging uncomfortably on the side of his face. He ignores this. No—he _doesn't notice_ this. He sees her smile and he ceases to notice much else.

James smiles too, then turns away. He blinks in sync with the brightest star overhead. He does that twice. "My goal was to prove you wrong."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yep. You said I couldn't do thoughtful with three knuts. This didn't cost a thing, I'll have you know. I remembered I had spare paint back at the family house, and I thought… Well, there's no way I can recreate the Great Hall for you, and I didn't want to set your house on fire with the floating candles trick, but I could give you… something close? 'Course, Remus did most of the painting, but the idea was mine, and I did most of the charms work…"

"It's so beautiful," she says. "I don't think anyone's been this happy to be proven wrong before."

"I thought asking your sister would be a problem, since we have to be here in your house without her—or you—and I don't think she likes me enough to trust me with that. But it didn't even take that much persuasion. That was lucky. We had a speech prepared and everything, but we didn't get to use it."

"You had a speech prepared?" The question comes out half-chuckle.

"To convince her we weren't going to rob you or burn the house, yeah."

She laughs.

"I suppose because she's moving out anyway?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"It doesn't mimic the sky real-time though. Sorry about that. I couldn't invent the right spell in time."

But Lily doesn't seem to mind in the slightest. She just says, still as awestruck as when she first saw it, "The _sky_ , you dork. You literally gave me _stars_ for Christmas."

He smiles, reaches out for her with his free hand to beckon her closer. When his fingers graze her elbow, she rolls to his side, giggling, and James feels so, so much.

"Happy Christmas, Evans," he greets her, once she's close and pressed to his side.

Softly, the words landing hot and honest on his neck, she replies, "James, I think I'm in love with you."

The stars go out of focus as his gaze drops down on nothing, his heart beating very fast. He ducks his head to look at her face. It's hard to tell for sure what her expression precisely is in the lighting, but he's certain her eyes are closed now. She looks like she's sleeping. Like she hasn't just spoken. But she _is_ awake, and she _did_ just say something. She did just say _that._

He knows what to answer it with, but the words won't find their way to his tongue.

"Does that scare you?" she asks him before he can speak, still softly, eyes still shut.

"No," he says at once. "No, it doesn't… You?"

Her arm tightens around him. "Very," she admits.

So James—trying to keep his breaths steady and his heart under control—kisses her forehead and keeps his mouth shut.

He'll tell her later that he doesn't think he's in love with her.

He'll tell her later that he _knows_ he is, without any doubt.

Maybe later she won't be scared anymore.


	21. christmas morning pt 1

**christmas morning**

* * *

James and Lily are still on the bedroom floor, limbs and heartbeats and dreams tangled, when someone enters the room. Whoever it is didn't knock. Or maybe they did, and James didn't hear.

Something nudges his foot, once, twice, and James opens his eyes, raises his head as best he can. He squints at Remus—for that's who it is—and then at the bright morning light haloing his looming body. He lets his head thud back down, feeling exhausted, having barely slept. Overhead, Lily's sky is gone. The ceiling looks just like a ceiling.

"I need to talk to you," says Remus. It wasn't especially loud, but too much so for the time and for Lily sleeping. Remus bends down to pick James's specs up off the floor.

James sighs, gingerly lifts Lily's arm off him, and then sits up, stretching. Remus hands him his glasses.

"Now?" mouths James. Glasses on, he glances down at Lily, who's stirring awake. He brushes a stray strand of hair off her face and starts to say, _go back to sleep_ , but he doesn't finish.

"I meant both of you," clarifies Remus, and only now does James notice the steel in his tone. His sluggish brain connects that to the not-knocking, and then to the fact that Remus is here this early. Remus hasn't always been the most intrusive person. Or the most excited about Christmas Day, for that matter.

Lily sits up. She looks at Remus funny when she tells him, "You opened your present." She sounds groggy still, and her hair's a downright mess, but her gaze at Remus is intent, hastening from sleep by the second.

"Yes," replies Remus, rigid and toneless.

Whatever Lily gave him for Christmas, he isn't happy about it. James is still struggling to stay awake to make sense of anything, let alone have a guess at what it could be. He's not even entirely sure this isn't a dream.

"I'm sorry," says Lily. "I didn't think it would... I thought—"

"No, it's... Yeah." Remus looks away. "I'll go wake Sirius and Peter. I'll wait for you downstairs."


	22. christmas morning pt 2

**christmas morning pt. 2**

* * *

They leave Mary and Marlene, both also in the house with them but still completely knocked out in Petunia's old room, as per Remus's request. Sirius and Peter are with them now, and the living room smells like coffee and some remnants of cinnamon and alcohol from last night. Remus won't sit down. James, Lily, Peter, and Sirius sit on the couch, in that order, waiting, nursing their mugs, following Remus's agitated pacing. Every time Remus pauses to look down on them with furrowed eyebrows, James's sleepiness dies as much as his apprehension grows.

"What's going on?" demands Sirius at last. "It's Christmas and I'm freaked out."

"Am I being pranked?" asks Peter.

"Whatever did you give him?" This question, from James, is directed at Lily.

Lily bites her lip. She looks like she's trying to phrase the answer, but before she can arrive at the words, Remus walks to the Christmas tree not far away and stoops to pick three wrapped presents. He hands one each to James, Sirius, and Peter. He turns to Lily, an unspoken question in his, for once, _not_ calm and collected face.

Lily nods. Nervous, apologetic. But also determined.

That nod makes Remus more antsy. And it's low and unstable when he orders, "Open those."

They do. The sound of crackling, tearing wrappers fill the silence, louder and more crisp than the fire from the grate. James's present is a maroon jumper. There's a silhouette of a stag's head on the front, the colour of dusted gold, detailed and majestic. He stares at it, confused at what the connection is, at how Remus could possibly be riled up in any way by this. But then he looks around, and Sirius is looking at James's stag jumper with contemplative eyes, his thumb rubbing skittishly over the hem of his own gift—a _dog_ jumper. Next to him, it drops heavy on James's brain and throat and heart before his eyes find it: Peter, with a rat one.

Remus finally lets himself down, settling on the coffee table in the middle of the living room. "I know you're in love with her," he says to James, who doesn't look around to check Lily's reaction to _that_ , "but you could've told me first."

"What?" says James. "I—"

"Prongs," cuts Sirius, stern and disappointed. James wants to shove him.

"But I—"

"He's right," Peter says, who always likes it when someone else besides him fucks up and needs berating. "How could you?"

James, annoyed now, sits straighter. "Look, I would never—"

"It wasn't him," says Lily. She doesn't look up. "James didn't tell me."

They all turn to her. She doesn't speak again immediately, and James wants to yell just to break the silence, to make something happen, to hurry things up. Not at Lily particularly, but to whoever's devising this thing up, because Remus is very much looking like he wants to bolt now. Forever. Bolt and never appear to them ever again.

When Lily raises her gaze, she looks, surprisingly, at Sirius.

"Excuse me?" Sirius says immediately, raising an eyebrow.

"No, not you," says Lily, shaking her head. "Your brother."

Silence. Heavy breathed, finger-trembling, head-swimming silence.

"His... You mean Regulus?" asks Peter.

"Who else," says Sirius tonelessly.

"So he knows," mumbles Remus, his index fingernail tapping incessantly on the table. "Your brother _knows_. Did you—?"

Sirius glares at him. "You know I'd never. I'm not dumb enough to make that big of a mistake more than once."

"But how can he know?" asks James. "And—he told _you_?" This, he says to Lily.

"You know him?" Sirius asks Lily as well, in complete disbelief. "You _talk_?"

"I don't _know_ know him," says Lily. "We only met—"

"Yeah, outside the Ministry," says Sirius, "when one of his dear mates assaulted you and Mary—"

" _What?_ " snap Peter and Remus.

"I told him," James explains to Lily at once. "Sorry."

"It's okay," says Lily.

"Who assaulted you, what the hell?" presses Peter.

"We'll tell you all about _that_ later," answers Sirius impatiently. He turns back to Lily. "Evans. My brother. This. Explain."

"I don't _know_ know him," repeats Lily. "But I met him again after that Ministry incident."

"And he just—you talk _once_ and he tells you _that_?" Sirius splutters. "What kind of bloody talk did you have?"

Lily puts the mug down on the coffee table, in a calculated distance from Remus. The thud effectively disrupts the chaotic path their thoughts have started to mold. "I ran into him while Christmas shopping," Lily tries again, "and he—"

They all lose it again, however, before she can continue.

"You ran into him," says Peter.

"While _Christmas shopping_ ," continues James, just as incredulous, and just as not finished.

"And he—my dear brother, with whom I've never spoken in years—"

"Just tells you I'm a werewolf?"

Lily winces visibly.

Peter says, after a beat of stunned silence, "Moony, are you sure she... I mean, what if this is all she knows..." He's raising the jumpers to indicate that Lily (and _Regulus_ what the ever loving hell?) might only just have known about them being animagi, but James is already sure that it's more than just that. They all know that this secret—this crime, really—comes attached with Remus's lycanthropy.

Remus reaches inside his jean pocket and tosses something in James's direction. James catches it by reflex. It's a maroon woven bracelet, the same shade as the three jumpers. It's got four small charms carved from wood: wolf, stag, dog, and rat.

He passes it to Peter, who passes it to Sirius, who raises an eyebrow at Lily demandingly.

Lily swallows. She takes a deep breath. "Can I just... I'm sorry I thought this was good idea. I was... I didn't know how to tell you that I knew about it."

No one responds. No one knows how to.

"I felt weird knowing and not saying anything," Lily furthers. "My exams were on a full moon. You didn't have an investment meeting that day."

Nothing. No one meets anyone's gaze. No one confirms, no one denies.

"I don't want you to lie when you can help it. I had to let you know that I knew, and that—that I'm okay with it. I'm perfectly okay with it. But I didn't know where to start, or who to talk to first—"

"Me," says Remus at last. At the same time:

Peter says, "Remus."

Sirius points at Remus.

And James says, "Moony, Lily. You talk to Moony first."

"I realize that now," says Lily. "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to... to trivialize it by pulling this, or make it seem like it's not a big deal to you—especially to you, Remus. I promise. I'm sorry."

Remus looks at her long and hard, and then, at length, nods. He gestures for the bracelet, and Peter hands it back to him.

When it's clasped around his wrist, Lily exhales the breath she's been holding. "Can I hug you?"

"Er," says Remus, startled.

"Like, all of us? Or just him?" asks Peter.

But Lily could no longer wait—she gets off her perch and launches herself at Remus, hugging him tight. "I'm sorry," she mutters on his shoulder. "Happy Christmas and I love you and I'm really sorry."

Remus pats her awkwardly on the back. He's slightly pink in the face and he's looking helplessly at his three mates—but James smiles, because he doesn't look like he wants to leave anymore. "It's okay," Remus tells Lily.

When she releases him, she doesn't return to the couch and stays on the coffee table.

"I still need an explanation on my brother though," says Sirius. "That's still a problem. I still don't get that."

"I know," says Lily. "And I'll tell you everything, but... This is your brother, and telling all of you here about it now would be like this jumper thing again, you know what I mean?"

James would be lying if he says he doesn't want to hear about it, but she's right. While it is their secret at stake, collective, this involves Sirius's family, which always has bits and pieces that Sirius does not want anyone to hear, not even James. Not when it isn't on Sirius's terms and time, at least.

"Lily, I'm an unregistered animagus," argues Peter. "If someone found out about that, I ought to know why and how and make sure they're not going to rat me out."

"You knowing how and why won't make anything better," says Lily. "Sirius knowing how and why might. It's his brother after all."

"I'm sorry, but I ought to know, too," says Remus.

"Yeah, there are a couple of things I want to tell you, too." Lily chews on her lower lip. "Okay. I talk to Sirius and Remus—"

"Hey," says Peter, dismayed.

"I'm sorry, Peter. But I'll talk to just them for now, and then have them decide which parts you should know and which you shouldn't. Deal?"

"Alright," says James. Lily smiles at him in gratitude. He smiles back.

"No," insists Peter. "Not if there's a possibility that I—"

"Wormtail, you are not going to Azkaban, I promise you that," says James, leaning forward in his seat again so he could look Peter in the eye. " _They_ promise you that." He turns to Lily. "Don't you?"

"We do," says Lily.

"Fine," concedes Peter. "Can you do that talking later though? It's Christmas and this is too much."

Lily smiles apologetically. "I'm sorry. Yes." She asks Sirius and Remus, "Is that okay with you two?"

They tell her it is.

"Huh. What are you lot doing up so early?" says a voice from the second floor landing, and they look up to see Marlene squinting down at them, hair a nest and right shirt sleeve hanging off a shoulder.

"What are _you_ doing up so early?" returns James, when they're sure by her stance that she hasn't been around long enough to catch anything of importance. She's not even awake enough to register the somber affair the five of them are currently having.

"I just remembered I left some cake under the couch," says Marlene.

They all blink at her. "What?" asks Remus.

Peter gets off the couch to peer under it. He retrieves a slice of the strawberry cake they had last night, mauled and with its frosting half-scraped off.

"See?" Marlene says, grinning at them, her lids drooping. "Merry Christmas." And then she turns around and shuffles back to the bedroom without another word.

They all look at the cake. At each other.

Still holding the saucer up and staring at the spot where Marlene had stood, Peter says, "Er, Merry Christmas."

And laughter, warm and easy, erupts among them.


	23. the snape box

**the snape box**

* * *

When James looks up to steal a glance, Lily is staring at him intently from the other side of the counter, her straw going round and round her glass of blue lemonade.

"The staring is distracting, miss," he says.

"You're adorable in that floral apron," she replies. "You should make it your thing."

"What, and make half the wizarding population mad with infatuation? Please. I'm not that cruel."

She laughs.

"Seriously though, I'm a much better baker without audience," he says. "If I botch this, you can't not let me be in charge of your birthday cake because of it."

"Should I go then?"

"No," he says, a little too quick, and sure enough she's smirking at his haste over the rim of her glass. "Just bring the staring down a notch."

"Gotcha."

He returns to the bowls and cups before him and she to her drink. She keeps her promise and stares out the window instead, strangely quick to immerse herself in deep thought. "Have you talked to Sirius yet?" she asks.

He has, and he tells her so.

"Did he..." She doesn't finish. "Sorry, never mind. You don't have to tell me anything."

"Nah, it's fine," he assures her. "He told me pretty much everything, I think."

"Ah, right..."

He's checking his cheat sheet when she leans her elbow on the counter, rests her chin on her hand, and says, "I have a question."

"Shoot," says James distractedly.

"What's Severus Snape like?"

His focus shifts immediately. She must have heard the name from Regulus, but James can't see why she'd center on it. Of all people. "Greasy," he says.

She frowns.

James sighs. "He's... I don't know. It's hard to judge someone objectively when you dislike them."

She stares out the window again. "Hmm."

"Did Regulus mention him? Why d'you ask?"

"No, I know… _knew_ him. Before all this. Before you."

"You did? How?"

"We were kind of... mates."

James drops the spoon and leans against the counter. " _Snape_?"

"Yeah. He's from Spinner's End. We were neighbours."

James mulls over this. He doesn't think a proper reaction has arrived yet, and whatever _this_ is, it's still just his brain processing the shock. And bewilderment. Lily and Snape? _Mates_? "You said 'were'."

"Yeah, we're not anymore."

"Neighbours or mates?"

"Both."

There's a fist raising itself in triumph somewhere in his thoughts, and he tries not to let it show. "What happened?"

She turns to the window again. "Stuff," she says simply. "It's a long story."

He has a lot of questions, and it's a struggle to pick the ones he wants answered first. One moment he's so sure he knows her—well, most of her—and then the next she's telling him that she and Snape were _friends._ A thought occurs to him. "Did you go find him?"

"Find him?"

"Was it like with Mary? When you found out about _you_ , about magic, did you remember him as well? Was he a strange magical dream from the past that you realized was real?"

Lily shakes her head. "I met him when I was ten. He was never a dream."

 _Ten_. Before Hogwarts. For all of them. "But he must have known you were a witch then. If your aunt and your sister made you forget when you got your letter, you must have shown signs of magic before—"

"He must have, I must have," Lily cuts him off. "I don't remember anything about that because of... you know. I just know that he was a friend from when I was young. Muggle memories. I remember hanging out near the river and stuff."

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

She smiles at him. "It's alright."

"So you were friends when you were ten, and…"

"And then he disappeared to some far school. 'Course, I know now that he went to Hogwarts. We hung out again the first summer he was back, but I… I got forbidden by Petunia to see him after that. I guess he stayed away as well. I never saw him again."

"Ever?"

"Not until I found out that I was a witch, too."

"So it _was_ just like with Mary? You remembered some stuff he did from childhood and you looked for him?"

"No. It was just coincidence. We met at Diagon Alley. I was well in this world by then—at least as well in it as it's possible for someone in my case. We recognized each other immediately, and we… talked. Caught up. He mentioned he was working as a Potions something or other for the Malfoy family—"

"Did you know about them? The Malfoys."

"No. Not then. If I'd known, I wouldn't have... Anyway..." She pauses to think again, like she's deciding how best to tell the rest, or if she ought to. "I needed someone good at Potions then, incidentally, so… we kept in touch."

"Do you still talk?"

"No. Like I said, stuff happened. We're nothing now."

He should be happy about that, but something about the way she said _nothing now_ made it feel like they were _something once_ , and it's… "When you said you were mates, you don't mean… er, were you…"

"Together?"

James makes a non-committal noise of assent.

The length of time she takes to respond is enough for James to lose his mind a bit. "I don't think so," she says at last.

"That's not a no," says James. Dejectedly, despite his best efforts.

She notices. "This upsets you," she says, apologetic. "I'll stop. I'm sorry. I just... I asked because I know he has his faults—many and terrible—but I didn't think until now that he'd actually be friends with someone like Mulciber."

"He _may_ have a very few, very latent, er, redeeming qualities, whatever they are and wherever he's hiding them, but I didn't think he'd actually manage to be friends with someone like you."

She doesn't comment. Instead, she completely boxes the whole thing and goes back to the other one: "What's Sirius going to do about Regulus?"

James is not sure if he's glad about the change of subject. On one hand, he wants to know more about that part of Lily's life. On the other, it's Lily and Snape. Mates. Possibly more. He can't seem to wrap his head around the concept. "I don't know. Sirius says he'll try to talk to him." He kicks the now-closed Snape box in his head. "He also doesn't believe the bit about Reg knowing we're Animagi just because ' _he knows Sirius more than anyone'_."

"Do _you_?"

"They haven't really talked since we were twelve."

"So you don't."

He shrugs. "I guess I don't."

"How else can he have known?"

"Someone in that circle of psychos knows about the transformations. Sirius thinks—actually, I kind of do, too—someone just ratted us out."

"Someone else knows?" asks Lily, frowning.

"Yes," he says bitterly. "He found out while we were still in school." That particular night is a buried shadow in James's memories, and now it drags itself up to the surface, a swarming swirl of terror and guilt and anger and nerves. Thinking about it makes his skin crawl. "You can guess who, actually."

She doesn't take long. "Sev?"

"The one and only."

"I mean, I wouldn't put it past him now, I suppose," she says, more to herself than anything.

James is tempted to reopen the Snape box, but he decides against it. There's the risk of feeding the irrational jealousy that is no doubt starting to plant itself somewhere inside him, and he doesn't want that. Lily doesn't deserve that kind of petty behavior. So he tries to go back to the cake. He kicks the Snape box in his head once more, stronger this time, and hopes everything inside keels over and dies.

Lily hops off her stool, goes around the counter, and stands beside him. "Hey," she says, leaning against him. "I like _you_."

She's crazy, that's crazy, but he smiles before he can think, and that's crazier. "And I thought the _staring_ was a problem."

She grins. "You can just say it back, you know."

"Peer pressure much?"

She rolls her eyes.

"Bit drastic of a subject change, don't you think?" he asks.

"What better way to smooth your forehead?"

"I can think of other ways…"

"Shut it," she says, but with a chuckle. "I just wanted to remind you. I could see your mind wandering from where I sat."

"Where did it go?"

"I don't know. Ugly places. This is me dragging it back."

"It's back here now." He means it. He's surprised that he does.

"And?"

"And I'm fine now, I promise. Thank you."

"And?"

"And…" He faces her. "And aren't you scared?"

He expected her to pause and think again. To remember that feeling in her room last Christmas, to remember _I think I'm in love with you_ , to connect that to _I like you,_ to come up with the response that he wants to say right now instead. But she just smiles up at him, fast and sure. "I'm not gonna say 'not scared anymore'," she says. "But... I'm not scared right now."

He considers for a second, and then he leans down and kisses her on the lips, all boxes forgotten. "Love you, too," he murmurs against half of her smile, so so softly, his flour-dusted hands on her waist.


	24. lily's birthday

**an:** hi! i believe this is the first note i'm going to write for this story? before anything else, i would like to thank everyone who has followed this, especially the ones who take the time to leave reviews, and the ones who trusted me enough and found promise in the short, lacking prologue to click the follow/subscribe button, like, two years ago. thank you so much! i felt the need to write a note now because the other week, i think, i got a review saying this story made them happy, and i just — i don't think it will, ultimately. to put it simply, this story is sad. going to be sad. it's the opposite of _seven things_ , if you've read that one, not just content-wise, but also in that _seven things_ was a compilation of some really good, happy core memories of mine, while this one contains pages of my journal that i don't like rereading, but i needed closure for. it was hugely inspired by an anime called _shigatsu wa kimi no uso_ (your lie in april), and you can read on that if you want to know what happens from here on out. should you decide to continue sticking with me through the end of this, i will be sincerely and utterly grateful, but if not, i understand that totally, too. thanks for reading _time lapse_ up to here.

* * *

 **lily's birthday**

* * *

On the morning of January 30th, James wakes up from a dream that he doesn't remember. He stays in bed and keeps his eyes closed, trying to salvage any bits and pieces, but he doesn't even remember if the dream was good or bad. So he kicks off his sheets and gets off the bed.

And then he realizes it's Lily's birthday.

He smiles. The dream is nothing.

* * *

A couple of very wrong things will happen today, the first one being Sirius bursting into the flat's kitchen with Peter. 'With Peter' being 'dragging Peter', that is, and James's insides contract with dread at their expressions: both of them are shaking, but Sirius from anger and Peter from fear. James puts down the boxed cake for Lily and immediately pries Peter's wrist off Sirius's tight grip, stepping between them.

"What's going on?" he demands.

"Tell him," says Sirius, to Peter. "Go on. Tell him what you did."

James whirls around. "What is it, Wormy?" He's apprehensive, but he uses the nickname and tries a benevolent tone. It's what always works for Peter best.

"James, I..."

James waits, but the sentence remains unfinished.

"Tell him!" Sirius growls, stepping forward.

James, not taking his eyes off Peter, pushes Sirius away with a hand that blindly lands on his chest. "You what, Pete?"

Surprisingly, Peter straightens up, emboldened by some sudden burst of defensiveness. "I didn't do anything."

"What—you—" Sirius sputters, and James readies himself to exert more effort to keep Sirius away. But then Sirius slackens, and then he's chuckling; that dark, horrible chuckle that's without the littlest trace of humor in it. "Yeah. That's right. My bad. You didn't do anything."

Peter realizes whatever mistake he just made, and shrinks again. He opens his mouth to retort, but there's nothing.

"What," starts James, getting angry himself now, "is going on between you two?"

"Tell him!" Sirius orders, yet again, but now with a renewed, more threatening air of frustration.

James turns to face him. "Give me your wand."

"What?"

"Your wand. Now."

Sirius glares at him, but concedes. He procures his wand from his jacket pocket and shoves it gruffly in James's open hand.

"If you don't calm down, I swear to god, I'll stun you," warns James.

Sirius's expression does not change at all. "I only gave you that because you wouldn't need me to calm down when he tells you what he did."

James ignores him. "Peter. What is it?" Not a question now. An order.

Peter looks close to tears. "James, I'm sorry," he begins. Then he tells James all of it. All of what he knows, he's seen. Everything he did and didn't do.

When it's clear that he's done, James lunges before any further explanation is offered, his fist landing in a sickening crunch. Peter staggers backward, James poises for another one—and Sirius steps forward and holds James back.

"Let me go," says James, fuming, his second punch still alive and waiting in the air. "You wanted me to do this. You knew I would do this."

"One," says Sirius, strangely sobered up, cold and quiet. "Just one. I can't lose you to it."

James breathes. Breathes, breathes, breathes. "Get out," he snarls at Peter. In his mind, the punch questions him, dismayed.

Peter doesn't need to be told twice.

James shrugs himself off Sirius's grip.

"Prongs," Sirius starts, but James just drops Sirius's wand on the table, his movements serrated but purposeful, and then disapparates in an angry gash of silence.


	25. reaper's ring

**reaper's ring**

* * *

Remus finds him first. He very nearly gets injured for it.

James furiously bats the bludger at a random space in Reaper's Ring, and Remus chooses _that_ exact spot to apparate in. James watches in horror as the bludger hurtles in Remus' direction, all other fears momentarily forgotten. Remus recovers quickly and redirects his wand fast and accurate at the bludger. In the same string of fluid movement, he freezes the starkly black ball mid-flight — a solid hole in the tapestry of Reaper's Ring's bleak colors — and says, "I knew I'd find you here."

The bludger drops to the icy ground with a thud.

James realizes then that he's still got his Beater's bat up. His arm falls to his side. "Go away," he says, his heart still beating like mad. From this, from Peter, from everything.

Reaper's Ring is a sizable clearing in the middle of an equally sizable graveyard, a hidden one west of the Potters' manor. No one seems to bury their dead here anymore though; every tombstone and mausoleum remains as dusty, crumbling, and covered in a thick layer of pink-flowering vines as when they found it in their fourth year. In winter, impossibly, it seems even more desolate. Right now it just seems to gloat.

"I think I'll stay," says Remus simply. He then — he just _sits there_ , on the cold ground, cross-legged. "Do you need me to throw things at you?"

James frowns at him.

"For the bat," he explains. "You want to hit things?" When James's eyes slide down to the bludger by instinct, Remus says, "No, except the bludger. I can Conjure stuff — "

"Why are you here?"

"Aren't you curious how I know you're here first?"

"No."

"So why Reaper's Ring?"

"What?"

"Why would you choose somewhere that we know you'd be in?"

James scoffs. "Because I thought my friends would respect my need for privacy right now."

Remus sighs. He pats the ground. "Come sit here, will you? I'm tired of looking up at you."

It's such a bizarrely out of place, nonchalant request, that for a moment James is unsure whether to stay stubborn and irate, or to just do as he's told. After some glaring, he walks over to him. He kicks the bludger on his way. He can _stay_ irate while he does as he's told.

"I don't think it's wise for you to be alone," Remus tells him, once they're both sat on the clearing floor, side by side in the middle of the long dead.

"Do you know what they did?" asks James. He can't say their names.

"Yes."

"So why — how are you so calm about it?"

Remus thinks about it. "I don't know what to do about it yet, but I know freaking out won't help anything."

"I'm not freaking out."

Remus says nothing.

"Fine. Alright. So I'm freaking out. How can you not freak the fuck out? She could _die_ , Moony."

"James, she's not going to die because of that." He said it with so much conviction that James actually eases a little for the first time.

Just a little. "How could he just..."

"It's Peter. If you think really hard about it, there's really nothing else you would expect."

James _has_ thought of that, really hard like he said, in the short lone time his mates have allowed him. But still. "He could have fucking surprised us all for once. I thought he knew that I... Doesn't _anything_ ever mean something to him?"

"I think he knows what Lily is to you," says Remus. "I think everyone knows at this point. It's just — Peter's always afraid. You know that."

James grinds his teeth in exasperation.

"You're mad at Lily, too," states Remus. He's just going to say facts out loud around here now, isn't he? That's just what he's gonna do?

"I am, yeah."

"It's her birthday." Ding. There goes one more.

"I know." He considers saying, _so what?_ as well, but he remembers the boxed cake he left on the table, and then it goes from that to wondering whether Sirius took it to Lily's. To wondering if Lily knows that James knows now, and that, supposing she doesn't yet, if she's mad at him right now for missing her birthday. To wondering if she's alright. It's so fucking unfair.

"It's not even noon yet," Remus interrupts his thoughts.

"I can't go."

"Why?"

"Because I'm angry."

"We're going to calm you down then." Remus sounds so... so _businesslike_ , in all of it, so didactic, but for some reason just his presence here works. James's hurricane thoughts have admittedly abated the moment he sat down here beside him. They have started to find some semblance of — if not quiet — organized noise. A steady buzz instead of the loud clangor of discorded, untuned instruments.

"What am I supposed to do?" asks James.

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do," says Remus firmly. "What do you want to do?"

"I want to punch Peter some more."

Even this, Remus just takes methodically. He nods. "What else?"

"I want to ask Lily what the hell is wrong with her."

"Right. Anything else?"

"I want to ask you what is wrong with you also."

Remus actually chuckles. "Okay, let's do that one then."

James glares at him.

"Why do you think there's something wrong with me?"

"Because! You're so... _calm_."

Remus shrugs. "I know we'd win."

James feels the fear surge up inside him, and he bites his lip to quell it. "You don't even play."

"I do."

"You don't even play well."

" _You_ do," says Remus, then sighs. "Well, you did, anyway."

The fear tries again, rises up and bangs against the walls, and James reads the names on the nearest graves to distract him. "I don't think I could... Do you think she did that for me? Isn't that unfair? Don't you think she's gone too far?"

Remus doesn't have an immediate answer for once. He leans back on his arms and stares up at the sky. "The last time we were at the manor, you snuck out to the pitch," he says. James stills and looks at him. "You went to the broom shed. You tried."

"You saw."

"So did Lily."

James forgets to breathe for a second. "She was..."

"I couldn't sleep." Remus is still not looking at him while he starts to explain, but James has a feeling he's not doing it for himself. He's averting his gaze because — because he knows that James needs to process this with some extent of privacy. He's giving James breathing room. "I was just gonna go to your study, to read, and you — I saw you slip out the door. I... Prongs, it wasn't my first time to see you go out in the middle of the night. Not even the second time. I knew you were going down to the pitch. I'd gone after you before, and... I'm sorry." This, he seeks James's eyes for.

James fought to swallow the lump in his throat. "What are you apologizing for?" he asks quietly.

"Intruding, I guess."

"You never even let me know you were there."

"I am now."

"It's... It's fine. It's okay."

Remus watches the sky again. "I wasn't going to follow you that night, but I caught Lily out shortly after, and I was afraid she would... well, I don't know, really. But I knew you wouldn't want anyone to see..."

He did. James didn't want anyone to see. James doesn't want _anyone_ to _ever see_ —

"So I stopped her." Remus also pauses the tale then, thoughtful. "I underestimated Lily, James. That was dumb of me, clearly. I mean, sure, she's always been great, she's... She's unbelievably and genuinely kind, and she's so easy to hang out with, and she's... I guess I just never really looked at her as something any more than a good friend who's in on the secret, at first. Just someone that I have to worry about. She was just another girlfriend of yours."

"Any more than a friend... You _like_ her? Lily?" asks James, surprised and nervous, not expecting the conversation to head this way.

"No, you idiot," says Remus, making a face. "You're going about it all wrong. I just meant — I thought she was just another Jung girl who happened to know more secrets. I didn't think... I mean, she's well one of us now, isn't she? She's not Jeanne. She's not another anyone. Even Sirius thinks so."

This is the point where James realizes he's relatively calmed down from the earlier events of the morning. He doesn't say anything, afraid he'd ruin it.

"She wasn't going to talk to you," Remus continues, of the night at the manor. "That night, when we went after you, I was worried she would march up to you and... I don't know. Do something that meant well but could upset you. But she was just... She just wanted to make sure you were okay. She knew you wouldn't want anyone to... Anyway, we both went after you, and she wouldn't come back in. She just watched you all night. She never said she wanted to go to you and talk, or ask you back in, or... She just stayed there. She was awake when I dozed off, she was awake when I woke up. We headed back a little before sunrise. I expected her to say something then — again, when you were serving breakfast — but she didn't."

When James doesn't reply, Remus goes on, "She asked me if I was good in Physics." He prematurely punctuated that sentence with a disbelieving chuckle. "That same night, while we watched you. And then she asked me what would happen if she flew up a thousand miles above you and just jumped off the broom."

"She what?"

"Crazy, isn't it," remarks Remus. "I think she was wondering out loud more than actually asking me."

"What... Why would she ask that? Why would she think that?"

"So you would wake up," says Remus. "At least, I suppose that's what she hoped. That Physics and adrenaline... She was wondering if it would take her jumping off a broom with you underneath so close to the shed, on a Quidditch pitch, for you to... if that scenario would make you forget everything else in a split-second and just — just grab your broom and fly. Or _remember_ everything. Whichever brings you back."

 _Why don't you fly anymore?_ He hears her voice clear in his head, and if her incessant curiosity then aggravated him, _now_ her (apparently more solid than he ever knew) insistence starts to seriously baffle him. "Fly. She wants to make me fly."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Only she can tell you that." He said it like he knew why, he just can't say. But then this is often how Remus speaks.

James's hand, the one Remus can't see, curls into a fist. "So she does _this_? She just bets her fucking life so I could play Quidditch again? In what world does that make sense?"

"In this one."

"You know damn well it doesn't."

For a moment Remus seems close to telling him something, an explanation that would put all the absurd pieces together, but holds back in the end. "Look, I didn't tell you all that as an explanation for what she did. I told you that because... because she could have done it that night, walked up to you and confronted you about it, but she didn't. I expected her to do so many things, James, to say all the things Peter and I said when you... when we didn't understand. But she didn't. She cares about you. She understands in a way _we_ took so long to do. Almost in the same way that Sirius does."

"Clearly she doesn't," insists James obstinately. "She didn't do it that night, but she did it now. _This_ is her jumping off the broom. This is her confronting me about it. Forcing me to fly."

"You have to talk to her," says Remus. "Not even just because it's her birthday, alright? You just have to talk to her. I know what she did seems selfish, but it..." He sighs. "I can't explain it to you."

"Do you know something, Moony?" asks James, because after all that, James now thinks he's not talking like that _just_ because he talks like that. He's talking like that because he knows something.

Remus won't look at him, and this time, it's for himself. "Just talk to her."

"What do you know?"

"More than I want to," he says, frustratingly cryptic. "I know, for sure, that Lily cares about you. She really does. I don't believe for a second that she would do anything to purposely hurt you."

"Purposely," echoes James. "She's being stupid then."

"We've all done stupid things."

"Well, I don't want to be on the brunt of her share of stupid things, alright? That's just... that's just _unfair_ , and selfish, and — "

"James," Remus cuts in. Ever quiet, ever firm, as in all the times he had to interrupt him with his name. Never tired. Just... sad, sometimes. Like now. "You'd keep being in the dark if you just stay here in Reaper's Ring. Go talk to her."

James doesn't speak any more for a long time. Remus doesn't either.

The sky is bright in that gray, blinding, wintry way when James looks up and blinks fast at the unmoving clouds. "Sirius sent you, didn't he?"

"Hmm. Partly."

"Why couldn't he come himself?"

"Because he can't lie to you." James wishes the answers all came to him as quickly and easily as they do to Remus. "It's like he physically cannot keep things from you when you're involved. Hell, even when you're not involved, really."

"So he shouldn't."

"We don't share secrets that aren't ours."

James agrees, in spite of himself. He doesn't tell Remus that though. He figures after the events of today (and it's not even noon yet), he's allowed a moment of self-aware immaturity.

"You were no help, you know," he tells Remus, out of spite, relishing the pettiness of it.

Remus laughs. It wasn't really a happy laugh, but it wasn't sardonic either. He truly found that amusing, just within the realm of unpleasant events. "You're going to talk to her now, though. That's all I came for."

James raises an eyebrow. "How can you be so sure?"

Remus leaps gracefully to his feet. "Because you're not angry anymore," he says, without an ounce of doubt. He summons the bludger to him, and he staggers a little as he catches its weight with one hand. "Leave the bat. See you."

And then he's gone.


	26. the rest of the day

**the rest of the day**

* * *

Fifteen minutes later —

He shouldn't have gone back to the manor. He shouldn't have gone back to the Quidditch shed to return the stupid bat. That was _stupid_. If he hadn't gone, he — he wouldn't have seen the cobwebs glistening in the midday sun, noticed the bends in the twigs and the chips in the handle. He should have gone straight to Lily's, left the stuff at Reaper's Ring, left _everything_ at Reaper's Ring.

The door of the shed feels rough and cold against his back, the red on his lids not enough to even his breaths, to dispel the spinning.

He needs Remus. He needs Sirius. He needs — he shouldn't have left. He should've gone straight to Lily's —

* * *

Scenario A: He goes. He does. Immediately. He stays on the doorstep for a bit, to steady his mind, to keep his emotions in check. He remembers that other time, when they fought. He remembers when he stood there in the cold, working around the guilt and thinking of a way to tell her that Quidditch makes him sick, in every sense of the word. He remembers how she opened the door before he could even knock, the warmth of her skin, her sigh. He knocks now. Petunia answers. She's scowling, presumably because he's late, or because he doesn't have the cake — oh, but no, because the cake is there, on the table. The candles are not where James would have put them. Already blown. Lily meets his eye from across whatever space between them. She sighs in relief, runs to him. She hugs him tight. Over her shoulder, for immediate occupation and a reason to avert his eyes, Sirius pointedly drinks a glass of something amber.

"I'm sorry about Puddlemere," says Lily. As if on cue, Sirius holds up a newspaper to his face with his free hand and reads something uncannily close. The headline, easily visible to James because of the deliberate angle, reads: _Regulus Black is Puddlemere United's new chaser._

"Oh, er," James begins lamely, catching on. But Lily just hugs him again.

"It's okay," she says. "I'm sorry it had to happen today. You can be pissed or sad or — it's okay. Really. Please don't be guilty or anything..."

 _She made a bet with Mulciber._ That's what Peter said. _They've been corresponding for a while, it seemed — I had nothing to do with it, Prongs, I had nothing to do with that. I swear. I was just there when that ultimatum happened. I swear. I swear I didn't know anything before that..._

"I'm okay now," James tells Lily, trying to smile, but even just speaking seems hard. "Happy birthday…"

 _It's going to be a Quidditch game_ , said Peter. _Her team against his._ _If she wins, she — I wasn't clear on her terms. She said they already knew what she wanted. She has… They've talked about it. They have talked multiple times before, it seemed. And Mulciber wants… her. He said if he wins he gets to do whatever three things he wants — James, please, I'm sorry, I was just — I was just there, alright? I just happened to be there, I was on my way to get the Invisibility Watches that Dung promised, I didn't know. I knew absolutely nothing about it before that…_

There's nothing much left to the celebration. James had leftover cake in silence, holding on to the Puddlemere United news as an excuse. Even Petunia can't find it in her to bug him.

He goes through everything painfully perfunctorily, and everyone understands, everyone is unbearably nice. Even the fucking cake is nice, is _perfect_ , and — and Lily laughs at something, and she's so beautiful, and James wants to scream. He wants the day to be over.

He closes his eyes and shakes himself out of there. This is not happening. This will not happen. He's not going. He can't stand it —

* * *

The shed is cold and rough against his back.

* * *

Scenario B: He doesn't go. He stays there by the shed all day, staring at nothing and still somehow seeing how everything could go wrong.

The next day he goes to see Lily, and she's not there, because Petunia answers the door and Petunia says so. But she _is_ there. Lily. She's there but she's not speaking with him, because he missed her birthday, and that's — honestly, that's understandable. He's on the doorstep again, wondering if he should knock and insist to talk to her.

But he doesn't know what to do here. He doesn't know if he should stall the inevitable confrontation. Apologize for now. If he should keep quiet about the fact that he knows.

He gets out of there again.

* * *

Overhead, behind the clouds, the sun keeps inching west.

* * *

Scenario C: He goes there and he asks to talk _right now_. It cannot wait. He ignores Sirius's torn expression, Petunia's rage and loath curiosity.

He leads Lily out and asks her about it pointblank. They are on the doorstep, it's cold, and he — he doesn't see her here either. He can't.

He gets out because he doesn't know what she can possibly say. He gets out because he's too angry.

He's too terrified.

* * *

That's it. The truth is, in all of it, he's afraid more than anything. That's what fueled the punch for Peter, that's what Remus managed to momentarily ease at Reaper's Ring. Not the anger — the terror. Seeing his long untouched Quidditch stuff lit that fear back on fire, and now it's blazing, purer than ever, and he's completely consumed by it. In all of it — in all of his images of her crying, laughing, understanding, getting as angry as he is right now — in all of the scanarios he comes up with here, she is beautiful, unbelievably and absurdly, and he's so goddamn scared of losing her.

He gets lost in it and sometimes he feels himself fight back, for a moment he homes in on some sliver of hope. That, hey, maybe there's a little in him left brave enough to kick off the ground again and play for her. But then he feels the shed against him, the daylight on his lids. In his head, the cobwebs adorning his long-kept broom glisten, again and again. And then he's dragged back to the match two years ago, the before and the after, and... and that fucking reminder straight up kills him. He reels at realizing that even she — even _this —_ can't bring him back up in the sky. That wave of guilt and accusation claws at his insides and skins him alive. He shrinks into himself and shivers alone in an attempt to keep himself from throwing up.

Why is he like this?

When will it stop?

Why did it have to happen why does it still affect him like this why him why her _why_ _—_

* * *

 _They can't call the bet off_ , said Peter. _They did the Unbreakable Vow, so Mulciber could solidly hold her to it. They — I'm sorry, James. I really am. I was scared, so I bound them to it. Mulciber asked, and Lily wasn't — she didn't say no, she — it was fine, she said. I was just there, I didn't mean to... they asked, so I did it. I'm sorry..._

* * *

Sirius finds James by the shed that night. He doesn't ask, he doesn't say anything. He just sits by him, holds him until he can manage to stand and walk back home. He stays in the room with him until James is so tired that sleep all but snatches him.


End file.
